i 



mSSSiMSSBUBi 



B&& 



BVSS 

My 



n 




H 

m 



5831 



MStsKmn RfiwMBMKBaEcSS 

I 
■ 

lliilliltl 

H raalS ill 



1 



IKS 



^| 



B9 



ifX 









Hi 



rai 



THP 



HEP 

■ mill 

■H 

JB 

— 




Class P S 3 S M 

BookJLiiLMjf_ 



GofpghtM . 



1'5 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE MODERN DRAMA SERIES 
EDITED BY EDWIN BJORKMAN 



MR. FAUST 
ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 



MR. FAUST 



BY 



ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 




NEW YORK 

MITCHELL KENNERLEY 

MCMXIII 



COPYRIGHT 1913 BY 
MITCHELL KENNERLEY 



7$*; 



S 



-< . f 






THE* PLIMPTON* PRESS 
NORWOOD* MASS* U*S*A 



©CLA361068 



M * : 



*>- 



CONTENTS 






PAGE 


Introduction 


vii 


List of Plays by Arthur Davison Ficke 


X 


Mr. Faust 


1 



The author gratefully acknowledges his debt for 'permission 
to reprint one of the lyrics herein, which appeared 
originally in "Poetry." 



INTRODUCTION 

THROUGH all the work of Arthur Davison Ficke 
runs a note of bigness that compels attention 
even when one feels that he is still groping both for 
form and thought. In " Mr. Faust " this note has 
assumed commanding proportions, while at the same 
time the uncertainty manifest in some of the earlier 
work has almost wholly disappeared. Intellectually as 
well as artistically, this play shows a surprising ma- 
turity. It impresses me, for one, as the expression of 
a well-rounded and very profound philosophy of life 
— and this philosophy stands in logical and sympa- 
thetic relationship to what the western world to-day 
regards as its most advanced thought. The evolutionary 
conception of life is the foundation of that philosophy, 
which, however, has little or nothing in common with 
the materialistic and dogmatic evolutionism of the last 
century. The work sprung from that philosophy is 
full of the new sense of mystery, which makes the men 
of to-day realize that the one attitude leading nowhere 
is that of denial. Faith and doubt walk hand in hand, 
each one being to the other check and goad alike. And 
with this new freedom to believe as well as to question, 
man becomes once more the centre of his known uni- 
verse. But there he stands, humbly proud, not as the 
arrogant master of a "dead" world, but merely as 



viii INTRODUCTION 

the foremost servant of a life-principle which asserts 
itself in the grain of sand as in the brain of man. 

Yet " Mr. Faust " is by no means a philosophical or 
moral tract. It is, first of all and throughout, a living, 
breathing work of art, instinct with beauty and faith- 
ful in its every line to the principle laid down by its 
author in the preface to one of his earlier volumes: 
" Poetical imagination must fail altogether if it de- 
scends from its natural sphere and assumes work which 
is properly that of economic or political experience. 
Nor can it usefully urge its own peculiar intuitions as 
things of practical validity." 

Mr. Ficke was born in 1883 at Davenport, Iowa, 
and there he is still living, although I understand 
that he has since then been wandering in so many 
other regions, physical and spiritual, that he can 
hardly call it his home. He graduated from Harvard 
in 1904 and spent the next travelling in all 
sorts of strange and poetic places — Japan, India, 
the Greek mountains, the Aegean Islands. Returning 
to the United States, he studied law and was admitted 
to the Bar in 1908. While studying, he taught English 
for a year at the University of Iowa, lecturing on the 
history of the Arthurian Legends. 

He was a mere boy when he began to write, turning 
from the first to the metrical form of expression and 
remaining faithful to it in most of his subsequent ef- 
forts. His poems and essays have been printed in 
almost all the leading magazines. So far he has pub- 
lished five volumes of verse : " From the Isles," a 
series of lyrics of the Aegean Sea ; " The Happy Prin- 
cess," a romantic narrative poem ; " The Earth Pas- 
sion," a series of poems which may be characterized 



INTRODUCTION ix 

as the effort of a star-gazer to find satisfaction in 
the things of the earth ; " The Breaking of Bonds," 
a Shelleyan drama of social unrest, where he has tried 
to formulate a hope for our final emergence from the 
maelstrom of class-conflict ; and " Twelve Japanese 
Painters," a group of poems expressive of the peculiar 
and alluring charm of the great Japanese painters and 
their world of remote beauty. 

Edwin Bjorkman. 



LIST OF PLAYS BY ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 

The Breaking of Bonds, 1910 
Mr. Faust, 1913 



MR. FAUST 



INSCRIPTION 

Pale Goethe, Marlowe, Lessing — calm your fears ! 
None plots to steal your laurel wreaths away. 
Approach; take tickets: you shall witness here 
The unromantic Faustus of to-day — 

A Faustus whom no mystic choirs sustain, 
No wizard fiends blind with prodigious spell. 
The mortal earth shall serve him as domain 
Whether he mount to Heaven or sink to Hell. 

Yet, mount or sink, your lights around him shine. 
And there shall flow, bubbling with woe or mirth, 
From these new bottles your familiar wine, 
As ancient as man's rule upon the earth. 



MR. FAUST 

THE FIRST ACT 

The scene is the library of John Faust, a large hand- 
some room panelled in dark oak and lined with rows 
of books in open book-shelves. On the right is a carved 
white stone fireplace, with deep chairs before it. In 
the far left corner of the room, on a pedestal, stands 
a stiff bust of George Washington. Near it hangs a 
wonderful Titian portrait, a thing of another world. 
The furniture looks as if it were, and probably is, plun- 
der from the palace of some prince of the Renaissance. 

A fire is burning in the fireplace; it, and several 
shaded lights, make a subdued brilliancy in the room. 
Before the fire sits John Faust. Brander and Oldham, 
both in evening dress, lounge comfortably in chairs 
near Faust. All three are smoking, and tall highball 
glasses stand within their reach. 

BRANDER 

You are a thorn to me, a thorn in the flesh. 

Contagiously you bring to me mistrust 

Of all my landmarks, when, as here to-night, 

Out of the midst of every pleasant gift 

The world can offer you, you raise your voice 

In scoffing irony against each face, 

Form, action, motive, that together make 

Your life, and ours. 



4 MR. FAUST [act i 

FAUST 

Dear man, I did not mean 
To send my poor jokes burrowing like a mole 
Beneath your prized foundations. 

BRANDER 

Not alone 
Your attitude to-night; you always seem 
As if withholding from all days and deeds 
Moving around you — from our life and yours — 
Your full assent. 

FAUST 

Dear Brander! Is it true 
I am as bad as that? Well, though I were, 
Why should it trouble you? If you find sport 
In this strange game, this fevered interplay, 
This hodge-podge crazy-quilt which we are pleased 
To call our life — why, like it ! And say : Damned 
Be all who are not with me ! 

BRANDER 

Are not you? 

FAUST 

I claim the criminal's privilege, and decline 
To answer. 

OLDHAM 

Faust, might I presume so far 
As to suggest that I should like a drink 
Before you two start breaking furniture 
Over this matter? 

FAUST 

Certainly; I beg 
Your pardon ; I neglected you. 
(He busies himself with the glasses) 

No, no, 



act i] MR. FAUST 



We won't wage combat over this. You 're right, 
Doubtless, as usual, Brander. I have not 
Your fortunate placidity of mind, 
And I get grumpy. 

Come, fill up your glass ; 
And let us drink to the glories of the world. 
Down with the cynic ! 

BRANDER 

Down with him, indeed! 
And may he cease to trouble you. The world 
Is pretty glorious when a man is young, 
As we are, and so many splendid choices 
Lie all around him. There have never been 
Such opportunities as now are spread 
Before us. Men are doing mighty things 
To-day. A critic tells me that last night 
Wullf at the opera sang " La ci darem " 
With an artistic brilliancy of tone 
That never has been heard on any stage 
Anywhere in the world. You moped at home, 
Doubtless; but it was wonderful, on my word. 

OLDHAM 

Whom did you go with? 

BRANDER 

Midge. 

OLDHAM 

Ah, Midge again! 
I thought so. . . . 

BRANDER 

Well, I don't know why I should n't. 

OLDHAM 

Those rosy-toned remarks gave you away. 



6 MR. FAUST [act i 

Perhaps 't was not " Don Juan " that last night 
Was at its best, but Midge. Where did you sit? 

BRANDER 

Up in the gallery. 

OLDHAM 

The top one? 

BRANDER 

Yes. 

OLDHAM 

Once more, I thought so. You and Midge would look 
Nice in a box ! Yes, I will pay for one 
If you will take it. 

BRANDER 

Oh, leave me alone! 

FAUST 

Who is this " Midge " you speak of? 

OLDHAM 

Midge, dear Faust, 
Is short for Margaret ; which, you may guess, 
Describes a lady of the female sex; 
Said person being serviceably employed 
As maid-of-all-work for some ancient dame 
In Brander's own apartment house. She has, 
Beside what other virtues I know not, 
A most bewitching ankle and a taste 
For opera. And dear Brander's kindly heart 
Is so moved by the sight of these combined, 
He sometimes sneaks, by lonely alley-ways, 
With his fair Midge, and in the gallery 
High out of sight of all of us enjoys 
Her and the opera. 



act i] MR. FAUST 



FAUST 

I did not know 
You had a lady-love. 

BRANDER It's hardly that! 

But she 's a mighty jolly little thing. 

FAUST 

What sort of girl is she? 

BRANDER 

A mighty nice one! 
Full of all kinds of happiness ; but shy. 
I 'd like to see some rounder try to speak 
To her on Broadway. She looks like a lady! 

FAUST 

That is too bad. 
brander Oh, pshaw ! Don't lecture me; 

I 'm not a saint ; in fact, few of us are. 

FAUST 

Unfortunately not. I least of all. 

And yet I wonder if . . . . However, I 

Do not presume to lecture you. Remember 

One thing, though, as my friend. Your Midge has 

deeps 
Not pleasant under her if you let go. 

BRANDER 

Oh, I will not let go ! . . . Not yet, at least. 

OLDHAM 

Faust really means it, strange as it may seem. 
Of late he has turned moralist. 

FAUST 

Not quite: 
But just a little tired of pursuits 
That end regretfully. 



8 MR. FAUST [act i 

OLDHAM 

Well, don't pursue. . . . 

BRANDER 

{Goes to the window and raises the shade) 
See, what a night it is ! The stars are out 
As if a bucketful of them had spilled 
Across the sky. And here we sit like owls, 
Blinking and staring at a little fire 
When heaven is burning ! I 'm afraid it 's time 
For me to leave this owlish parliament; 
And I shall probably knock holes in half 
The windows of the town as I walk home 
Star-gazingly. And here it 's after twelve ! 
I might have guessed it from the fatal fact 
That we 'd begun to talk philosophy : 
No sane man ever does, except in hours 
When by all rights he should be sound asleep. 
Good night to both of you. And don't stay up 
Talking till morning. 

OLDHAM 

Well, good night. 

FAUST 

Good night, 
Brander, I 'm sorry you must go : come in 
Quite soon again, and I will try to be 
Less disagreeable than I was to-night. 
[Brander goes out. 

OLDHAM 

I '11 bet he takes an arc-light for a star ! 

FAUST 

He is warm-hearted ; I am fond of him. 
But Midge! . . . However, one can say no 
more. . . . 



act i] MR. FAUST 



OLDHAM 

He 's a good fellow ; but he tires me 
Sometimes. 

FAUST 

Dear boy, I envy him. 

OLDHAM 

Of course, 
And so do I ; but I would not exchange 
Heads for a kingdom. 

FAUST 

Are you so fond, then, 
Of what 's in yours ? 

OLDHAM 

No, but at least I have 
A certain faint perception of the gilded 
And quite preposterous crudeness of our days — 
The sordid sickness of his life, and ours ; 
And that is something to be thankful for. 

FAUST 

Gratitude is a graceful gift. 

OLDHAM 

Come, come ! 
What snake has bitten you, that to your lips 
A poisoned irony so bitter springs 
To-night? 

FAUST 

I am revolving in my brain 
This serious question : whether 't is not best 
That one turn humorist. The mind that seeks 
Holiness, finds it seldom; who pursues 
Beauty perhaps shall in a lengthened life 
Find it perfected only once or twice. 
But if one's quest were humor — what rich stores, 



10 MR. FAUST [act 

What tropic jungles of it, lie to hand 
At every moment, everywhere one turns — 
What luscious meadows for the humorist! 

OLDHAM 

No — for the satirist ! There is no humor 
In what you see and I see when we look 
On this crude world wherein our lives are spent — 
This sordid sphere where we are but spectators — 
This crass grim modern spectacle of lives 
Torn with consuming lust of one desire — 
Gold, gold, forever gold — Or do you find 
Humor in that? 

FAUST 

It might be found, perhaps: 
The joke 's on someone! 

OLDHAM 

There 's no j oke in it ! 
It is the waste, the pitiful waste of life ! 
Men — slaves to gather gold — become then slaves 
Beneath its gathered weight. For this one hope, 
All finer longings perish at their birth. 
Men's eyes to-day envy no sage or seer 
Or conqueror except his triumphs be 
In this base sphere of commerce. The stars go out 
In factory smoke; the spirit wanes and pales 
In poisoned air of greed. It is an age 
Of traders and of tricksters; all the high 
And hounded malefactors of great wealth 
Differ from the masses, in their wealth, indeed ; 
But in their malefaction, not at all. 
Your grocer and my butcher have at heart 
The selfsame aims as he to whom we pay 
Tribute for every pound of coal we burn. 



act i] MR. FAUST 11 

Their scope is narrower, but their act the same 
As his — against whose millions all the tongues 
Of little tricksters in each corner store 
Babble and rail and shriek ! 

FAUST 

Almost you do 
Persuade me to turn humorist on the spot ! 
Was ever, since Gargantua, such a vine 
Heavy with bursting clusters of the grape 
Of humor? 

OLDHAM 

Of corruption! You may laugh; 
But there 's in all your laughter hardly more 
Mirth than in my upbraidings. Ah, I grow 
So weary of this low-horizoned scene, 
Our generation; I am always drawn 
In thought toward that great noon of human life 
When in the streets of Florence walked the powers 
And princes of the earth — Politian, Pico, 
Angelo, Leonardo, Botticelli — 
And a half-hundred more of starry-eyed 
Sons of the morning, in whose hearts the god 
Struggled unceasing. Ah, those lucent brains, 
Those bright imaginations, those keen souls, 
Arrowy toward each target where truth's gold 
Glimmered, or beauty's ! Those were days indeed; 
We shall not look upon their like again. 

FAUST 

I am not sure. 

OLDHAM 

Then take my word for it ! 

FAUST 

I am not sure ; the lamentable fact 



12 MR. FAUST [act 

To me seems otherwise. For I believe 

That this vile age of commerce and corruption 

Which you describe in very eloquent terms, 

Is still, upon the whole, the best that yet 

Has graced our earth. I think not more than you 

Am I in love with it ; but, looking back, 

I fail to see a better, though I peer 

Into remote arboreal history. 

OLDHAM 

When I was six, my teachers taught me that. 
Why, one would think that you had never heard 
Of Greece or Italy! 

FAUST 

And what were they? 
Your Renaissance, despite its few bright gleams, 
Lies like a swamp of darkness, soaked in. blood 
And agony: such tortures as we scarce 
Dream of to-day writhe through it ; and the stench 
Of slaughtered cities and corrupted thrones — 
Yes, even the Papal throne — draw me not back 
With longing toward it. Rich that time might be 
If one were Michael Angelo; but how 
If one were peasant, or meek householder, 
When the Free Captains ravaged to and fro, 
And peoples were the merest pawns of kings 
Enslaved by mistresses? The more I look, 
The more evaporates that golden haze 
Which cloaks the past ; the more I doubt if men 
Had ever in their breasts more lofty souls 
Than those we know. And I am glad to be 
A citizen of this material age. 

OLDHAM 

Congratulations ! — tempered with surprise 



act i] MR. FAUST 13 

At finding you, beneath your lion's skin, 
So sweet an optimist — whose faith can find 
All 's for the best ; and the best, this great year 
Nineteen Thirteen. 

FAUST 

Hardly so strong as that. 

OLDHAM 

Yes, tell me that the golden age has come ! 

FAUST 

I quarrel not with ages — but with man ; 
Whose life such play and folly seems — for all 
Its sweat and agony — that laughter lies 
The sole escape from madness. I peruse 
The present and the past, only to find 
Mountains of human effort piled aloft 
Like the Egyptian Pyramids, and toward 
No end save folly. . . . 

All is foolishness ! 
In Argolis, a woman, somewhat vain, 
Preferred a fop to her own rightful lord 
And ran away ; and then for ten long years 
The might of Hellas on the Trojan plain 
Grappled in conflict such as had been mete 
To guard Olympus, and Scamander ran 
Red with heroic blood-drops. And they got 
The woman. And it all was foolishness ! . . . 
That was your Golden Age. I hope you like it. 

Foolishness ! . . . Once a mariner set forth, 
With all the fires of heaven lit in his breast 
And godlike courage on his brow, to find 



14 MR. FAUST [act 

New worlds beyond the unknown wastes of sea. 
He sailed; he found; he died in rusty chains: 
So that, to-day, the vermin of all climes 
May thither flock, and there renew the old 
Familiar toil toward utter foolishness. . . . 

Why all this labor unto vanity? 

Why all this straining toward an empty end? 

OLDHAM 

Ah, you forget what Beauty was to them ! 
We are quite lost to that high touch to-day. 
Beauty hung over them, a star to draw 
Men's aspiration. That divides them quite 
From our debased modernity. 

FAUST 

Dear Oldham! 
My dear delightful visionary Oldham! 
What an adorer of the past you are ! 

OLDHAM 

Yes, I adore it sacredly, and loathe 

To-day's whole content — except you ! I loathe it 

So much that, if I had the dynamite, 

I 'd blow it all — and you and me ourselves — 

Into a nebula of dust. . . . Ah, well, 

We hardly can decide these things to-night, 

Can we? I must be off, little as I like, 

To end our midnight talking. 

FAUST 

Oh, not yet! 

OLDHAM 

I must ; this is not good for me : I fear 

To let myself dwell on these restless thoughts 



act i] MR. FAUST 15 

Which with a perilous longing sometimes make 

My actual days so bitter that despair 

Grips me in horror. And besides, I 'm due 

To pick my brother up. I have, you see, 

The limousine to-night, and that entails 

Its obligations. Dear modernity! 

Whose Saviour is the limousine ! . . . Good night ! 

FAUST 

Good night. May all the Furies and the Gorgons 
Of Greece and Florence leave you in repose 
To dream to-night of white-limbed goddesses 
And painters like archangels ! 

OLDHAM 

I deserve it! 
And yet I fear they will not be so kind. . . . 
Sleep is no friend to me these many nights. 
I do not know what wrong I can have done 
That so offends her she will none of me. 
One of these days, she will carry it too far. . . . 
[Oldham goes out. Faust turns out all but two of 
the lights; then seats himself wearily before the fire. 
The room is dark around his lighted figure. 

FAUST 

The play drags, and the players would begone, 

Out of this theatre of tinsel days 

And lights and tawdry glamour, out to face 

Even the blank of night, the icy stars, 

The vast abysses. What the gallery-gods 

Could give, they well have given ; but deities 

Ins c rut abler than they annul all gifts 

With one gift more — the restless mind that peers 

Past fame, friends, learning, fortune, to enquire: 



16 MR. FAUST [act i 

Whither? Whither? Whither? And no answer 

comes 
To the cold player's lips. . . . 

I see too much 
To make my peace with any ordered role 
And play it heartily. To-day's thin coin 
Pays not my labors ; and to-morrow's hope 
Has never been authenticated to me 
By a fulfilling hour when I might say : 
" Lo, this is what I hoped ! " The vision flies 
As I advance; while always far ahead 
Its glow makes dim the color of my days ; 
And I loathe life because my hope is fairer, 
And know my hope a lie. Thus, Faust, my friend, 
You damn yourself ingeniously to hells 
Of rich variety. . . . 

The eyes of men 
Envy me as I pass them in the street — 
Me, whom sufficient fortune, moderate fame, 
Have made completely happy in their sight. 
Well, I am no barbarian: let them have 
The bliss of envying. . . . But I am sick 
With the hour's emptiness; and great desire 
Fills me for those high beauties which my dreams 
Yearn ever toward. I am weary ; I would go 
Out to some golden sunset-lighted land 
Of silence. 

I have been athirst of dreams ! 
And all earth's common goals and gifts have been 
But fuel to flame. O strange and piteous heart! 



act i] MR. FAUST 17 

credulous and visionary heart! 
Desirous of the infinite — from defeat 
Arising still to grope again for light 
And the high word of vision ! And in vain ! 
Till, not having found, its bitterness corrodes 
Inward — like one betrayed by his last god. . • • 

Strange, that my father was a worthy man ! 
Perhaps 't is his blood in me that withholds 
Unreasoning my hand from washing clear 
This scribbled slate with one quick tide of peace. 
Would more of him were in me ! that like him 

1 might spend eagerly a useful life 
In medicining miserable men 

Who were better dead — employ my force 
To aid a world within whose marrow dwells 
An evil none can cure, an agony 
Beyond our dearest aiding. 

Ah, well, well! 
Such are the great men of this busy world, 
Whose ardor for the game is anodyne 
Against its buffets, and intoxicant 
To lend it reveller's meaning. Ardor given, 
All things are possible. . . . 

You, old marble-face, 
Who front me from the corner with that grave 
Virtuous Father-of-your-Country look, 
I pay you my respects ; you are a light 
Of leading, as I see you now. Your soul 
Was never shaken by convulsive doubts 
Of life or man or liberty ; you built 



18 MR. FAUST [act i 

Unsceptical of bricks, but such as lay 
To hand you took, nor did your purpose shake 
At prescient thought of how your edifice 
Might be turned pest-house some day. Undismayed 
By doubt, you rose, and in heroic mould 
Led — dauntless, patient, incorruptible — 
A riot over taxes. Not a star 
In all the vaults of heaven could trouble you 
With whisperings of more transcendent goals. 
O despicable, admirable man! 
How much I envy you — the devil take you ! 
[The bust of Washington and its pedestal move 
slightly; gradually they change and shape themselves 
into the figure of a well-dressed man, rather short 
and stocky, with a sociable, commonplace face. His 
head, however, is very peculiarly modelled; it re- 
minds one, indescribably and faintly, of the fact that 
men sprang from beasts. The high position of the 
ears help this impression, as does also the astonish- 
ing animal brilliance of the eyes. Faust, passing 
his hand over his forehead, turns away. 

FAUST 

This is what comes of smoking far too much. 

SATAN 

Good evening, Mr. Faust. 

FAUST 

Well, I '11 be damned! . . . 
And who, I beg, are you? 

SATAN 

I ask your pardon 
For thus appearing in a way unknown 
To strict convention. But I never set 



act i] MR. FAUST 19 

Great store by custom ; and though nowadays 
I follow the proprieties, still I feel 
That one need not be slavish — 

FAUST 

Who are you? 
What are you talking of? How did you get here? 

SATAN 

I am, sir, Nicholas Satan, at your service. 

FAUST 

Nicholas Satan ! Quite a name. Perhaps 
Some relative of the illustrious one? 

SATAN 

Himself. 

FAUST 

Stop this cheap foolishness! Who are you? 
Or shall I ring for the police? 

SATAN 

I am 

Satan. If I appeared with colored fire 
And lightnings round me, you would doubt no more. 
But like your narrow and near-sighted age, 
You know me not in my own natural shape. 
Now let this end ! Here is my proof. You once 
Summoned me to your aid, and, when I came, 
Weakly rejected me. You were a boy 
In college, and a woman blackmailed you — 
A low, crude matter. I had settled it 
Swiftly, if you had let me. We alone, 
We three, on Harvard Bridge — night — and be- 
neath, 
A practicable river : ah, it was 

A child's task! But you faltered. . . . You recall, 
Possibly. 



20 MR. FAUST [act i 

FAUST 

I recall. ... So you are he. 
I did not know you. 

SATAN 

Let 's forget the past. 
We meet now under happier auspices. 

FAUST 

Incredible. 

SATAN 

No, quite an honest fact 
Am I. 

FAUST 

I hardly can persuade myself 
Whether to laugh or pull a solemn face 
At seeing you. It is preposterous ! 
I thought that you were dead — a myth — a wraith. 

SATAN 

Dead? That is rich! 

FAUST 

Well . . . don't you think yourself 
A slight anachronism? 

SATAN 

My young friend, 
I am no laughing matter. With the times 
I, too, have changed, and am as up-to-date 
As the Ritz-Carlton. 

FAUST 

But your horns and tail 
And pitchfork? Not a vestige do I see 
Of your famed look ! You have no frightful glance ; 
I cannot even so far natter you 
As to say special badness makes your face 



act i] MR. FAUST 21 

Great and distinguished. If you 're Prince of Hell, 
How villanously have the poets lied ! 

SATAN 

They have lied, always, horribly, of me! 

I am not half so black as they allege. 

You know, exaggeration is to them 

What whiskey is to most men. But time bursts 

Their bubbles — or at least we come to take 

Their work as merely art. Thus their description 

As art is not so bad ; but if you seek 

For truth, it 's outright libel. 

FAUST 

I admit 
It has a certain perfectness of evil 
Lacking in you. 

SATAN 

Surely to-day we know 
That nothing is so wholly good or bad 
As our forefathers thought: not black and white, 
But gray, predominates. Well, I am gray, 
Possibly. I was never black ; and age 
Has made me stouter, and with gentle warmth 
Ripened my virtues ; and, even though I say it, 
You will not find me a bad sort to meet 
If you will but be fair, and put aside 
Your ancient and poetic prejudice. 

FAUST 

Well spoken ! And well met ! Come, have a drink. 

You are the most diverting visitor 

I 've had in many a day. Bourbon or Scotch? 

SATAN 

A very little Scotch. That 's plenty, thanks. 
It 's very seldom those who summon me 



22 MR. FAUST [act i 

Would give, not take. And did you send for me 
Only to have a drink? 

FAUST 

I sent for you? 

SATAN 

Did you not summon me? 

FAUST 

Why, no — 

SATAN 

Ah, well! 
It 's my mistake ; wires get crossed sometimes. 
I hope I 've not intruded. 

FAUST 

Not at all. 
Delighted to have met you. 

SATAN 

I regret 
That I have bothered you. I have enjoyed, 
However, your kind hospitality. 
To make amends to you, before I go, 
I should be glad to do you any service 
Within my power. 

FAUST 

I thank you ; but I think 
That there is nothing in your special line 
That I have need of. 

SATAN 

Are you really, then, 
A man contented? 

FAUST 

I would hardly go 
As far as that ! . . . I only meant to say 



act i] MR. FAUST 23 

My needs, my troubles, are not of such kind 
As you could remedy. 

SATAN 

Now, there again 
You take the poets' word for me — those low 
And scurvy fellows who lump all their spleen 
And call the mess my portrait ! But in fact, 
I am more versatile, more broad, more kind 
Than they conceive. I venture to believe 
That I could aid you. 

FAUST 

All the fiends in Hell 
Lack devilry enough. 

SATAN 

If you would speak 
The symptoms of your trouble, I at least 
Could give you friendly counsel for your needs. . . . 
Oh, I am deeply learned ! 

FAUST 

And besides, 
A most accomplished mocker ! . . . My complaint 
Is quite beyond your counsel. Why, I tell you, 
I have examined, tried, experienced 
The passions and the aims of mortal life 
With the grave thoroughness and good intent 
That mark a doctor of philosophy 
Writing his thesis. And my careful search 
Of life has brought me one great verity : 
I do not like it! No, I do not like 
Anything in it : birth, death, all that lies 
Between — I find inadequate, incomplete, 
Offensive. So you see me sitting here, 
Instead of talking politics in the streets, 



24 MR. FAUST [act i 

Or weeping at the opera, or agog 

At a cotillon. For the savor 's gone 

From these, as parts of an unsavored whole. 

I simply have, with reason and sound thought, 

Convinced myself that only fools attain 

Their hope on earth — in a fools' paradise 

That does not interest me. . . . Now, could you treat 

This case, good Mr. Satan? 

SATAN 

In my day, 
I have relieved far sicker men than you, 
My dear friend Faust. And yet I would not say 
Even for a moment that your case is not 
A grave one: not so much the case itself, 
As what might spring from it. In such a mood, 
Men sometimes have done mad and foolish things 
With consequences sad to view. Some minds, 
Reaching your state, and finding life a bane, 
Decide within themselves that naught can be 
Worse than the present world, and then set out 
To revolutionize, rend, whirl, uproot 
The world's foundations. And the mess they make 
Is pitiful to contemplate! Such sweet 
And beautiful souls as I have seen go wrong 
Along this path: Shelley — he had your eyes; 
And Christ — but I '11 not talk theology. 
Besides, his churches almost have made good 
His personal havoc. . . . 

FAUST 

That is not my line. 

SATAN 

No, no, you keep your head ! Now let me see. . . . 
A temporary sedative you require 



act i] MR. FAUST 25 

To bridge the dangerous moment. I suggest 
A little course that old Saint Anthony, 
Epicure though he was, would grant as rare 
And finely chosen : careless days and nights — 
Delicious gayeties — the Bacchic bowl — 
Exquisite company from whom some two 
Or three, with golden or with auburn hair, 
A man of taste might choose to solace him 
In sunlight or in starlight — while the lure 
Of subtle secrets in those yielding breasts 
Spice the preceding revelries. . . . 

FAUST 

Go tell 
That tale to college boys, whose lonely dreams 
Have shaped Iseult of Ireland, Helen of Troy, 
As end of heart's desire — and, lacking these, 
Clasp chorus-Aphrodites. But I know 
That from the topmost peak of ecstasy 
Falls a straight precipice ; half-times the foot 
Misses the peak — but never mortal step 
Has missed the gulf beyond it. And I see 
Where, in night's gorgeous dome, to-morrow waits 
With cold insistence. Me you cannot lure 
With this poor opiate. And I beg of you 
Not needlessly to tax your mental powers 
By now suggesting the delights of drink: 
I know them; and they give me headaches. 

SATAN 

Ah, 
How crude you think me! 

FAUST 

No, I think you human. 
We all are that sometimes. 



26 MR. FAUST [act i 

SATAN 

You have not grasped 
All that I meant. I know the calfish joys 
Of the young freshman, suddenly let loose 
With chorus-girls for nursemaids, are not yours. 
I mean far subtler things : I mean the play 
Of the wise soul that sees the abyss of life — 
Sees the grim measure of the mortal doom — 
And over that dark gulf in reckless mirth 
Dances on rainbows, with delightful arms 
And bosoms close to his. That is a mood 
That always thrills me with a sense of large 
And splendid courage. If I did not think 
That it would bore you, I should like to make 
My meaning clear by reading a few lines 
That I once wrote when I myself was in 
Your very mood — Or would you care to hear 
My little poem? 

FAUST 

What ! Is even the Devil 
A poet nowadays? 

SATAN 

Indeed he is: 
And not a bad one. Once I would have scorned 
The poets ; but we moderns so surpass 
The ancients here that I am proud to write 
Some verses now and then. For we have learned 
That poetry, like all the other arts, 
Is pure technique : the mere ideas are nothing, 
The form is everything. That ennobles us 
And makes us artists. And as artist, I 
Am not contemptible, as you may see 
From this slight sample. With your leave, I '11 read. 



ACT 



i] MR. FAUST 27 



{Satan produces an enormous scrap-book of maga- 
zine-clippings, turns over the pages and at last begins 
to read) 

A Watteau Melody 

Oh, let me take your lily hand, 
And where the secret star-beams shine 
Draw near, to see and understand 
Pierrot and Columbine. 

Around the fountains, in the dew, 
Where afternoon melts into night, 
With gracious mirth their gracious crew 
Entice the shy birds of delight. 

Of motley dress and masked face, 
Of sparkling unrevealing eyes, 
They track in gentle aimless chase 
The moment as it flies. 

Their delicate beribboned rout, 

Gallant and fair, of light intent, 

Weaves through the shadows in and out 

With infinite artful merriment. 

• ••••• 

Dear lady of the lily hand — 
Do then our stars so clearly shine 
That we, who do not understand, 
May mock Pierrot and Columbine? 

Beyond this garden-grove I see 
The wise, the noble, and the brave 
In ultimate futility 
Go down into the grave. 



28 MR. FAUST [act 

And all they dreamed and all they sought, 
Crumbled and ashen grown, departs; 
And is as if they had not wrought 
These works with blood from out their hearts. 

The nations fall, the faiths decay, 
The great philosophies go by — 
And life lies bare, some bitter day, 
A charnel that affronts the sky. 

The wise, the noble, and the brave — 
They saw and solved — as we must see 
And solve — the universal grave, 
The ultimate futility. 

...... 

Look — where beside the garden-pool 
A Venus rises in the grove, 
More suave, more debonair, more cool 
Than ever burned with Paphian love. 

'T was here the delicate ribboned rout 
Of gallants and the fair ones went 
Among the shadows in and out 
With infinite artful merriment. 

Then let me take your lily hand, 
And let us tread, where star-beams shine, 
A dance ; and be, and understand 
Pierrot and Columbine. 

FAUST 

Splendid! Delightful! 

SATAN 

You are flattering me. 
How did you like it, really? 



act i] MR. FAUST 29 

FAUST 

Well, as art 
I think it splendid; as philosophy, 
I hardly praise it. 'T is a mood that comes 
And has its will of us in its own hours — 
Yes, irresistibly. But past the hour 
Wait graver judges. I decline to be, 
As you suggest delightfully, a fly 
On the spoiled beer of life. Nor do I lean 
Toward your ingenious blending of despair, 
Satiety, and child's-play. 

SATAN 

Those who take 
This attitude, however, swiftly grow 
The darlings of existence — souls that sip 
Of every flower the nectar, and are bound 
Unto no laws or standards, but move free, 
Viewing all things as relative. . . . And yet 
Your special temperament may not prefer 
Nectar. Those lines of sternness round your mouth 
Convince me you are right ; another cure 
Better befits you. And a mighty one 
I set before you, which has ever served 
As lodestar for all high and glorious minds, 
All kings of earth, all potentates of thought, 
All great achievers. Power I offer you — 
The one chief prize that all men have desired 
And shall desire forever. 

FAUST 

Now you grow 
Rather more interesting. What do you mean? 
A crown and sceptre and a thousand slaves 
To serve me? 



30 MR. FAUST [act i 

SATAN 

Do not jest. I offer you 
The one sole reservoir where power to-day 
Lies stored in sleeping cataracts. At noon 
Come with me into Wall Street ; take your stand ; 
Buy, sell, as I direct you ; and one hour 
Shall make you richer than you ever dreamed 
In madness of desire. For three days more 
Come there each noon again; at end of these, 
If you have done my bidding, you shall be 
Master of the finances of the world, 
Despot of nations, unto whom the kings 
And captains of the earth shall kneel to crave 
Crumbs from the table. Then let pen and sword 
Forget their quarrel for supremacy; 
Since you can buy them both, or starve them both, 
Or cast them to the wilderness ! Such power 
I offer as would make the pulses beat 
Even of a skeleton! 

FAUST 

But not a soul 
Grown sceptical of life. Power? Power? For what? 
And over what? And toward what? Not a power 
Over myself or pain or loneliness 
Or ignorance or evil ; not a strength 
To bid the near-world cease, and in its place 
Instate my visions beautiful and pale, 
Nearer the heart's desire. No, you would give 
Power to direct the miseries of men, 
But not to stay them : power to hold the world 
As some cold robber-baron from his rocks 
Once held his little valley: power to sit 
In ultimate seclusion, and look down 



act i] MR. FAUST 31 

On streets and mines and workshops with the sense 
That I was fountain of the miseries 
Dark in them all. I thank you ; but I think 
I should derive small sport from such a game. 
You see, I am not Satan. 

SATAN 

Well, you are 
A subtle one, a shrewd one ! On my word, 
I hardly had suspected you so deep. 
What time I have been wasting! Mr. Faust, 
At last I know you for a prince of men — 
A brilliant mind, a high intelligence, 
A spirit incorruptible. The trash, 
Baubles and claptrap which the foolish herd 
Snatch at, you scoff — and rightly. I will not 
With one more word of it insult your mind 
That admirably penetrates to deeps 
Where I, too, love to dwell. I put aside 
All trivialities, and frankly say 
That I can offer you one ultimate gift 
Fit even for you — a subtle paradise 
Such as not Hercules mid Western Isles 
Found in the Garden of Hesperides. 
It is a paradise of secret peace, 
A glorious land of amaranthine bloom; 
Where happiness, having fled the world, now dwells 
In shining gladness. Guarded, deep, sublime 
With lights and shadows, lies it : there have hearts 
The weariest and the greatest of mankind 
Found perfect refuge and abiding-place 
For time and for eternity. To few 
Its gates are open: it I promise you 
If you but trust me ! 



32 MR. FAUST [act i 

FAUST 

But why should I trust you? 
If history speaks true, you have deceived 
All who, since Eve, have put their faith in you. 
Further, your paradise could hardly have 
Joys in it worth the grasping, to my taste. 
So pardon me if frankly I admit 
I doubt your promise. 

SATAN 

Ah, you are wholly wrong! 
I am quite honest with you, now having learned 
Your true capacity. 

FAUST 

Perhaps, perhaps. 
And yet I must decline. 

SATAN 

You doubt me still. 
But I will prove my utter honesty 
Beyond contention. In my deepest soul, 
I know this paradise will serve your need ; 
And to make plain to you my fair intent, 
I offer you a bargain whose clear terms 
Must drive your doubts away. I am prepared 
To pledge myself to be your abject slave 
And servant for all time if you yourself 
Do not acknowledge that my paradise 
Delights you wholly! 

FAUST 

Well! That is an offer ! 

SATAN 

What could be fairer? You yourself shall judge; 
And you risk nothing. Ah, your look still doubts! 



act i] MR. FAUST 33 

You have in mind those libellous poets' tales 

Of bonds inscribed in blood which I exact 

In payment, and destroy men's souls ! My friend, 

Have I yet asked you for a bond of blood? 

And if I ever do, I give you leave 

To wring my neck unceremoniously. 

FAUST 

Well, for the life of me, I cannot read you! 

Yet let me ask: why such an eager will 

To serve a man into whose rooms you came 

By chance to-night? Why give yourself such pains 

To furnish him a paradise ? 

SATAN 

There is 
No mystery in that. I would ally 
You to myself. 

FAUST 

Thanks, I decline. 

SATAN 

You fail 
To understand me. For I ask not this 
As promise of you. 

FAUST 

What, then, do you mean? 
What do you count on? Whence do you expect 
Pay for your trouble and your risk — a risk 
Not trivial, I warn you? 

SATAN 

Let me make 
The matter clear to you. I know quite well 
The risk is nothing, since my paradise 
Will utterly delight you. Granting this, 



34 MR. FAUST [act i 

You see my profit : you will stay with me 
Willingly there forever, to my ends 
An interested assistant. I will serve 
Forth on my tables such delicious fare 
That you will freely choose to be my guest 
Through time and through eternity. I say: 
Fie for a bond written in scrawly blood ! 
A bond of choice is better. Could a saint 
Speak fairer to you? I risk everything, 
And you risk nothing but a little time; 
And time, as you are placed, seems not so dear 
That you need hoard it. 

FAUST 

But your ends are — what? 

SATAN 

How can it matter now — if seeing them . 
You shall approve them? 

FAUST 

Are you serious? 

SATAN 

My jests have other aspect. 

FAUST 

I accept. 
Your game is to my taste. For thirty years 
Have I made search through all the lands of earth, 
The realms of learning, and the tangled groves 
Of fancy, for some region which my soul 
Might with entire approval view; but none 
Has been vouchsafed me. If the Devil can 
In this surpass the world's established powers, 
Then I am his disciple willingly. . . . 
But if you fail, friend Satan ! — I shall tie 
You to a cart's tail and exhibit you 



act i] MR. FAUST 35 

Like a dead whale throughout the country — or 
Make you curator of an orphanage! 

SATAN 

I shall not fail. 
oldham (enters) 

I beg your pardon, Faust ; 
I thought you 'd be alone. My brother left, 
Not waiting for me ; and, as I passed by, 
I saw your lights, and thought I would look in 
Just for a moment. I had things to say 
That are perhaps much better left unsaid. 
Good-bye, my dear friend. I will not disturb you. 
Good night again. 

FAUST 

Wait, Oldham ; do not go. 
I have a visitor whose name you know, 
But not, perhaps, his person. Let me have 
The pleasure of presenting you. This is 
The Devil — Mr. Oldham. 

OLDHAM 

You are mad! 
What jest is this? 

SATAN 

I am indeed the Devil. 
Look in my eyes intently. . . . Shall I tell you 
Your thought, two minutes since? ... Or what you 

hold 
Clutched now against your side? . . . Or where you 

9° 
When you go hence to-night? . . . 

OLDHAM 

No! ... I believe you. . . . 
Although it is incredible! . . . 



36 MR. FAUST [act 

FAUST 

You come 
Just at the proper moment for good-bye, 
For I am going with him on a journey, 
And do not know how soon I shall return. 
If I return at all. 

OLDHAM 

A journey? Where? 

SATAN 

To paradise. 

FAUST 

He offers paradise 
That will suffice my wish, and gives himself 
As pledge of his success. 

SATAN 

Come, we must haste, 
For it is very far. 

FAUST 



To paradise 



OLDHAM 

To paradise. . . . Take me with you! 

FAUST 

My friend, 
It is not possible. I do foresee 
Some perils to whose touch I would subject 
None save myself. 

OLDHAM 

And what care I for them! 
Faust — on my word, when I climbed up your stair 
This second time, it was to say good-bye 
To you forever, being quite resolved 
To end my choking loneliness and loathing 
With a quick shot to-night. Take me, or I 



act i] MR. FAUST 



Shall carry out my purpose. What care I 
Whither you go, or what the perils be? 
I would go with you into Hell! 

SATAN 

We go 

To paradise. What is this Hell you name? 

CXJKTAIN 



THE SECOND ACT 

The scene is the stone-paved courtyard of a ruined 
temple. In the centre lies a square pool, with wide 
rows of steps leading down to the water, now over- 
grown with lotus plants. Around the court rise long 
colonnades of pillars with grotesquely carven bases and 
capitals of luxuriant design. Beyond these appear 
green masses of dense tropical foliage, in which an oc- 
casional brilliant flower shines. 

Faust, Satan and Oldham, all wearing white tropical 
dress and sun-helmets, are seated on fragments of 
fallen columns in front of the pool. Luncheon is spread 
before them. Oldham is lighting a cigarette; Faust is 
just finishing his meal; Satan is leaning back, con- 
templating the surrounding jungle. Two dark-skinned 
servants, wearing white robes and turbans, are begin- 
ning to bear away the repast. 

OLDHAM 

One's blood beats fuller in these tropic lands. 
Last night, as we were dining, where the beach 
With its plumed palm-trees sloped to meet the sea, 
And the white foam along the glassy waves 
Played in the evening light — I half believe 
I could have written love-songs. But to whom — 
That were a problem! 

FAUST 

Yes, one's brain is lit 
With fire beneath this sun. At night, the glow 



act n] MR. FAUST 39 

Is magical; but at this height of day, 

When all the branches and the flowers and rocks 

And the far glimmering rivers shake and writhe 

In the fierce blaze, I feel a hideous touch 

Of madness in it. 

SATAN 

Keep you to the shade! 
This is the pinnacle, the very noon 
Of summer in these lands. One hour of sun 
Unshaded — and poor Oldham and poor I 
Might have a maniac or a corpse as guest. 

OLDHAM 

I am not sure that I would help you with him. 
I might be elsewhere occupied. Last night 
I entertained myself with imaging 
A project which, if I adopted it, 
Would preengage me. 

SATAN 

With a single guess, 
I '11 tell you what it was. 

OLDHAM 

I give you twenty. 

SATAN 

You thought perhaps it would be nice to be 
The white bull we saw yesterday, and eat 
Without reproof from every vender's stall 
Throughout the whole bazar; and you intend 
Thus to disguise yourself, and try the sport. 

OLDHAM 

You hit it nearer than I thought you would! 
'T was something like that. I was wondering 
If, in this marvellous and lazy clime, 
It were not possible for one to take 



40 MR. FAUST [act n 

Twenty young beauties and a hundred slaves — 
Retire to some secluded isle of palms — 
And live without a thought, a wish, a hope, 
Drugged with the warmth, the languor and the light. 

FAUST 

Possible? — For a rabbit! Not for you. 

SATAN 

I am afraid you 'd find it wearisome. 
Some like it; but not your kind. 

FAUST 

In this heat 
Even he grows crazy; and we, Satan, turn 
Unsympathetic creatures. Whew, this blaze 
Is getting worse! Can't we move on? 

SATAN 

We go 

No farther. 

FAUST 

Lovely residence! 

SATAN 

It is here 
That our long journey terminates, my friends. 
Upon this spot I trust, if all goes well, 
To give your long-tried patience recompense. 

FAUST 

Recompense? I am sceptical of it! 

But we deserve this. None but idiots 

Would have come with you to this boiling land 

On a wild-goose chase; on each step of which 

One gets a fleeting panoramic view 

Of kinds of misery one did not guess 

Existed in the world. Those lepers, beggars, 

Cripples, fanatics, reptiles — all the swarms 



act n] MR. FAUST 41 

Of loathsome creatures we have passed — will haunt 

My dreams forever with new vivid masks 

Of nightmare. Recompense? There is n't any! 

SATAN 

Await the event. You shall have recompense. 

OLDHAM 

Satan, what is your meaning? What event 
Do you await here? You have been to us, 
Through our long journey, secretive and close 
Of all your purposes — from day to day 
Giving no hint of your to-morrow's plan 
Nor of our destination. Now, I think, 
Silence is not a virtue. Have we come 
In fact to our last halt? 

SATAN 

This is the spot 
Toward which our course unswervingly has aimed 
Since the first day. This vast and ruined shrine, 
Built in forgotten times to unknown gods, 
And now in timeless solitude enfolded, 
Has long been known to me. Here, in retreat 
From the world's noises, dwells a holy man, 
A wonder-worker of unfathomed power, 
Now long forgotten by the troubled world 
Except me only. 'T is his aged hand 
Shall open to you those celestial gates 
We come to enter. 

FAUST 

Ah, a wonder-worker! 
Perhaps he will perform the mango trick, 
Or the rope-climbing, or the boy-in-the-basket? 
The jugglers here have been below report 
One hears of them. 



42 MR. FAUST [act ii 

SATAN 

Put by your idle sneers. 
He is a prophet and a saint whose like 
The world can offer not. Upon his face 
You shall behold such utter holiness, 
Such sublimate devotion as shall shake 
Your hearts' foundations. 

FAUST 

Well, I can endure 
The meeting if he can. 

OLDHAM 

Satan, you choose 
Sometimes strange company. You often speak 
Of friendship with such men of holiness 
As much surprises me. 

SATAN 

If you were but 
A little wiser, you would understand 
That I have taught them much, at various times, 
That is of profit to them. 

FAUST 

Pray teach me 
A little something also. 

SATAN 

No, you think 
You know too much already. . . . Furthermore, 
You do not trust me; and I will not teach 
One who keeps restlessly, the whole day long, 
His eyes upon me, as though fearful I 
Were waiting to spring on him unawares ! 

FAUST 

Oh, you exaggerate. 



act n] MR. FAUST 43 

OLDHAM 

Look through yonder palms ! 
Someone is coming. 

SATAN 

He sees us! It is he! 
[Through the colonnade along the far side of the 
courtyard, there enters the Holy One, an aged man 
of venerable and sublime appearance, clad in a simple 
white robe. In his hand is a large copper bowl, which 
he carries with some care. 

SATAN 

He brings a bowl of water from the spring — 
The very bowl I gave him! 

OLDHAM 

What a face! 
What light, what soundless calm! 

FAUST 

He is, indeed, 
One of the ancient prophets. . . . 

SATAN 

Holy One ! 
Satan salutes you! 

THE HOLY ONE 

Satan — come again 
After so long? A little longer — then 
No carcass of illusion here shall wait 
To greet you. 

SATAN 

In the greatness of the sea I 
All waves find home. . . . 

THE HOLY ONE 

Yea, verily ; and the deep 
Lies not far off. I am drawn nearer it 



44 MR. FAUST [act ii 

Since last you came: I see its floods more clear, 
It laves me daily. . . . But what brings you back 
To my deserted dwelling from the press 
Where you are ever going to and fro 
Upon the earth? 

SATAN 

I came to seek for you, 
Whose feet are on the path of blessedness. 

THE HOLY ONE 

Ah, has illusion rent itself in twain 
For your sight also? 

SATAN 

Ask me not. I come 
Not on my mission, but on theirs. . . . 

THE HOLY ONE 

On theirs! 
And who are your companions ? 

SATAN 

Friends, who seek 
What you have found. 

THE HOLY ONE 

They have not in their eyes 
Wholly the look of Seekers. Passion lurks 
Along their ruddy lips. . . . And yet, who knows? 

FAUST 

I offer you our greetings, reverend sir. 

A long way have we come to meet with you, 

By Satan led. 

THE HOLY ONE 

And what would you with me? 

FAUST 

Paradise ! Paradise ! 



act n] MR. FAUST 45 

THE HOLY ONE 

Too hotly spoken! 
Go, get you to the dancers of Tanjore. . . . 
Paradise ! 

OLDHAM 

You belie us, Faust. Let me 
Have speech with him. 

Most Holy One, we come 
From lands far off, beyond remotest seas 
Of sunset. There, in midst of toil and stress 
And clamor, have we dwelt, till weariness 
Of all life's gifts impelled us to go forth 
To seek if anywhere a region lay 
Where happiness still dwelt. To you we turn 
As unto one upon whose face is set 
The seal of peace such as we dreamed not of. 

SATAN 

They seek the Way, the Way, most Holy One. 

THE HOLY ONE 

The Blessed Eightfold Way lies free to all. 

I cannot ope it to them. Peace, joy, bliss, 

Supernal glory is it to those souls 

Who have put by the follies of their birth 

And sought its refuge. But though now I stand 

With lighted heart upon its blissful path, 

I can stretch out no hand to grasp their hands 

And draw them toward it. 

SATAN 

Yet the Blessed One, 
In Gaya first enlightened, far and wide 
Taught men the Way. . . . 



46 MR. FAUST [act ii 

THE HOLY ONE 

Aye, verily. . . . Some mood 
Of evil in my heart has closed my mouth 
And darkened thus my eyesight. But 't is gone. . . . 
Brethren, have comfort on my frugal stones. 
Ask me all ye desire. 

SATAN 

Most Holy One, 
These are my friends ; I bring them in sore need 
Unto your wisdom. For methinks they stand 
Now at the cross-roads where the choice is made 
Of truth or vanity. I beg you, tell 
Unto their ears how, in your day, you came 
To that dark crossing. 

THE HOLY ONE 

I would do your will 
In this, and in all other services, 
My brethren. 

You must know that in my youth 
I was a lusty noble of the realm 
Of Jeypore; and the falcon and the sword 
And the nautch-dancers and the palace-girls 
Were mine to love and master like a lord. 
Lordlike I lived; the caskets of the day 
And of the night I crowded with bright jewels 
Of love and joy and laughter. No desire 
Panted unslaked an instant at my doors — 
Nay, feasts were spread for it. And poor men gazed 
On me with envy, muttering from their dust: 
" Behold, the Heavens' darling." . . . 

OLDHAM Other lands 

Know the same tale. 



act n] MR. FAUST 47 

THE HOLY ONE 

Aye, aye, all lands. And then 
One night, alone in mine own garden walls, 
Beneath the piercing stars, I gathered my life 
Into my hands, and looked at it, and far 
Beyond it at all other mortal lives ; 
And dust fell from mine eyelids. . . . 

For I saw 

Birth and desire, satiety and pain, 
Recurrent yearning that is never stilled, 
Agony, death, rebirth in other forms, 
And agony, and desire, and agony. 
But nowhere saw I happiness or peace 
Or rest from cravings that like vultures tear 
The fibres of the heart. 

Then wandered I 
Forth from my palaces in utter pain, 
Seeing the world as dust and vanity, 
A desert of despair, a raging sea 
Of torment. . . . 

SATAN 

Now why stops the Holy One? 

THE HOLY ONE 

It wearies me to speak, and to recall 

Those perished years. . . . Give me to drink. 

OLDHAM 

He speaks 
Out of familiar deeps. Seas sunder us, 
But the same stars have cast their ghostly rays 
Into our bosoms. 



48 MR. FAUST [act n 

FAUST 

And those cloudless eyes 
Have seen what we have seen ! 

THE HOLY ONE 

I am refreshed. . . . 
Thus long ago, in my most desolate hour, 
I was refreshed by draughts from the deep springs 
Of light. Beneath a pipal tree I sat 
In lost despair; and thither to me came 
A pilgrim; and he glanced into mine eyes 
With sight that read the sickness of my soul, 
And sat beside me, and in measured words 
Like far-off song told me this parable : 

The Buddha came to where the sea 
Curled silver-white upon the land, 
And murmurs of infinity 
Breathed on the sand. 

And there lay shells like rosy foam 
Borne from the caverns of the deep, 
Frail playthings drifted from the home 
Of timeless, tideless sleep. 

And on the sand a Fisher stood, 
Drying his nets that late had seen 
The silent caverns of the flood 
And all the wastes between. 

The Fisher lingered in his place 
With countenance of mild surprise, 
And looked upon the Buddha's face 
With dumb, uncomprehending eyes. 



act n] MR. FAUST 49 

And Buddha spake : " Thy nets are drawn, 
Thy boat rocks idle on the sea, 
Thy day turns westward, and is gone. . . . 
Come thou with me." 

The Fisher marvelled : " I must toil 
With nets and shells among the caves, 
To win the sea's unwilling spoil 
From the harsh waves." 

And Buddha answered : " Cast no more 
Thy nets upon the troubled sea, 
Nor gather shells along the shore. 
Come thou with me. 

" Thou drawest shells and curious flowers 
From out the blue untrodden caves. 
Thou seest the passing of the hours. 
Thou hearest the clamor of the waves. 

" Thou openest the shell where lies 
The pearl more white than driven spray — 
And trackless past thy vision flies 
Each passing day. 

" But I will teach thee not to stir 
The shell nor flower in its sleep. 
For thou shalt roam the sepulchre 
That chasms all their native deep. 

" And vain desire, like terror grown 
Deep in the chambers of thy breast, 
Shall be from thee forever flown, 
And thou shalt rest. 



50 MR. FAUST [act ii 

" No search for pearls shall blind thy thought, 
Nor waves, with clamorous harmonies. 
But in the silence where is naught 
Thou shalt behold the One that is. 

" And where the days now speed like foam 
Across thy vision, there shall be 
For thee a vast eternal home — 
An Infinite Sea." 

The Fisher looked on Buddha dumb- — 
Looked deep into that tender gaze — 
Those eyes within whose depths had come 
And gone the sorrows of all days. 

He looked uncomprehendingly, 
And wearily he shook his head; 
And turned once more to drag the sea, 
Knowing not what the Buddha said. 

FAUST 

The cup again! The Holy One is faint. 

OLDHAM 

He speaks a miracle ! . . . 

THE HOLY ONE 

And then I knew 
That pilgrim as a saint, whose lips revealed 
The glory of the Buddha. I beheld 
My life one poisoned network of desire 
And fleshly longing and pain-sowing hope — 
The evil self seeking its happiness 
And shaping horror. And I cast away 
Myself, and cried: What am I but a dream, 



act n] MR. FAUST 51 

A wave within the sea, a passing cloud 
Upon the radiance of eternity? 
All yearning will I slay, and slay therewith 
The sorrow that succeeds it ! . . . 

So the lust 
Of life passed from me ; so the narrow I 
Merged in the infinite, from hope set free — 
Heritor of Nirvana's holy calm, 
Wherein the voices of the heart's unrest 
Are stifled, and the soul expands to clasp 
Joy, nothingness, eternity and peace. 

FAUST 

Peace. . . . Peace. . . . Like bells from upland 

monasteries 
You speak the word that summons us. But where 
In peace is room for all once-towering hopes — 
Nay, even for the wrecked and prostrate monoliths 
That mark those fallen pylons? 

THE HOLY ONE 

Let the earth, 
Ravenous of her young, these too devour, 
And dust and nothingness engulf their shapes — 
Vain burdens, bitter monuments. 

FAUST 

And where 
Shall I find deeps wherein without a sound 
I can extinguish my wild will that leaps 
Flamelike to meet the stars? 

THE HOLY ONE 

In that deep sea 
Hid in thy breast. Seek thou that tide of calm, 
For it lies there awaiting. 



52 MR. FAUST [act ii 

FAUST 

Can it be 
That life's whole burden may be cast aside 
And named as nothing, and its memory 
Perish forever? In the summer nights, 
Comes there no stealing ecstasy to stir 
The old forgotten longings? 

THE HOLY ONE _ . _ 

In the night 
And in the day, one ecstasy abides 
Ceaselessly with the heart that has put off 
Desire — one ecstasy of final calm. 
All other voices seem harsh clamorings. 

OLDHAM 

Ah, Holy One, lead me thy way of peace ! 
For I am weary of my heart's vain wars. 
My life is as a desert, where desire 
Corrodes me ceaselessly. Instruct my soul 
To follow thee home to the gulfs of rest ! 
That, in renouncement of this bitter will, 
It find at last deliverance it has sought. 

THE HOLY ONE 

My son, thou hast spoken; thou shalt come in time 
To that abode. The Buddha's light shall guide 
Both thee and me, poor seekers. Bide with me; 
And what I know, that shalt thou freely know, 
And my peace shall be thy peace. . . . 

Faust, the gates 
Admit one form already. 

FAUST 

Ah, the gates 
Are pearl and silver. . . . Would that there were 
space 



act n] MR. FAUST 53 



Within them for such fevered heart as mine — 
That with the restlessness of stormy winds 
Beats on its barriers ! 

THE HOLY ONE 

There is room for all 
Whose souls renounce the world and life and hope 
To gain that soundless silence. 

OLDHAM 

Faust, I feel, 
Transfused with light and glory, that deep peace 
Awaiting. There shall perish like a flame 
The passions which have seared my tortured soul 
All my life long. They die ; and nothingness 
Like a cool flood sweeps over me. Ah, come 
Where never storm shall smite! 

EATJST 

I see the gates ; 
I see the cool breast of the silvery flood 
Of refuge and oblivion. . . . Fare you well, 
Oldham, and light go with you! For I go, 
Alas, not with you. . . . 

OLDHAM 

Faust, Faust, turn not back! 
I, who am casting all desires in dust, 
To one desire still cling: I long that joy 
Of such deliverance fill you as fills me 
On this first step of the sublime ascent. 

FAUST 

I see the light that waits you on the peak; 
And my heart follows you. But my stern soul 
Plucks me yet back with cold insistency 
I cannot master. . . . Go ! If I could pray, 
My prayers should follow you. My visions shall ; 



54 MR. FAUST [act ii 

My love shall fold you. But I cannot come 

Where you shall go; I cannot cast aside 

All that I surely know — this pitiful 

And shattered mortal life, with its strange gleams 

And shadows — and embrace the icy void 

Where Being trembles on the final verge. 

To bid life cease — but linger as the moon 

Lingers in heaven — ah, that is horrible 

Beyond life's proper horrors ! . . . Were my pain 

A single atom greater — were my soul 

A single breath more weary — I would come. 

But now I must confront the winds of heaven 

Still master of my destinies. . . . To the last, 

Not in such tomb-world can my spirit rest. 

No golden clouds that throng Nirvana's gates 

Shall tempt me there to enter and resign 

My right to strain beyond all gates that be. . . . 

But you I cannot counsel. . . . 

OLDHAM 

Me the peace 
Already laps with wavelets of the flood. 

FAUST 

The flood is sundering us. 

OLDHAM 

Farewell, farewell, 
Beloved friend. I with the Holy One 
Henceforth am linked; and grief shall follow me 
In what should be your footsteps. 

FAUST 

Have no grief. 
In the vast deeps of life's salt bitter sea 
Perhaps awaits my anodyne, to heal 
Life's wounds. . . . 



act n] MR. FAUST 55 

OLDHAM 

Farewell! I go to paradise. 
[Oldham and the Holy One move slowly away to- 
gether, pass through the colonnades, and disappear 
into the forest. Faust follows with his eyes their 
retreating figures, 

SATAN 

You do not know a paradise when you see it! 
Some day, when I have time, I '11 start a school 
To give instruction to great minds like you — 
Debutant ! 

FAUST 

Ah, I had forgotten you. . . . 
Two men are worth a thousand devils still. 

SATAN 

I overrated you. Now get you gone 
Before I call the savagery that sleeps 
Here in the jungle to annihilate you 
For your unparalleled stupidity. 

FAUST 

Stupidity or no, I have one word 

Still to say to you, my malicious friend: 

To heel! 

SATAN 

What! 

FAUST 

Aye, to heel, I say ! Crouch down 
And follow me, my hound and servitor 
From this hour forth! 

SATAN 

You have grown very witty. 
Your wit, however, does not please me. 



56 MR. FAUST [act n 

FAUST 

Please you! 
There are few things that I desire less. 
To heel ! 

SATAN 

What fiends possess you? Ah, I see! 
You are still thinking of that wager made, 
That jest of ours. 

FAUST 

I am still thinking of it. 

SATAN 

You do not mean that now you wish to claim 
That forfeit seriously? 

FAUST 

I mean quite that. 

SATAN 

What an amazing man you really are! 

For your own sake, I tried to offer you 

A splendid paradise; I brought you here 

At infinite cost and trouble; you have had 

An hour of insight and experience 

New and instructive to you; your best friend 

Has found eternal bliss: and now you turn, 

And just because your uttermost crazy whim 

Is not quite satisfied with what he grasped 

Thankfully, you revert, with sorry taste, 

To my old careless generous remarks. 

I do not think your friends at home would call it 

A sporting attitude. 

FAUST 

The jungle shakes — 
Do you not hear it? — with the stifled, choked 
Laughter of leopards, elephants, hyenas, 



act n] MR. FAUST 57 

Rhinoceroses, apes, pythons, and tigers, 

Who hear you and are overcome with mirth. . . . 

I also laugh with them. 

SATAN 

Magnanimous 
Your laughter sounds ! True, you have beaten me, 
And I am at your mercy. By some whim, 
Trick, technicality, your mind rejects 
A noble paradise ; and to my pledge 
You therefore are entitled. And I stand 
Ready to pay it. 

FAUST 

Ah, at last we have 
Acknowledgment of it ! Frankness is good 
Even for the Devil, Satan. 

SATAN 

I have been 
Frank with you always. And, if to your taste, 
I will be franker still. Your stake is won; 
You have your triumph: but does it quite fill 
The chambers of your heart? Will it suffice 
In place of that bright paradise you dreamed 
Might be your gain as loser? Ah, my friend, 
In copper you have won, but lost in gold! 
And victory will not requite for that 
Your empty treasury. 

FAUST 

Not empty quite; 
You are too modest. 

SATAN 

Oh, if you choose, my pledge 
Shall be fulfilled, and I will be your dog — 
Snarling a little, sometimes — snapping at 



58 MR. FAUST [act ii 

Your friends and furniture and lady-loves — 
But yet your dog. However, I can do 
Better for you than that. . . . 

FAUST 

Enough ! Enough ! 

SATAN 

But hear me ! You '11 admit, a feather's weight, 
A hair's breadth only held you from the gates 
That Oldham entered. Almost they sufficed 
Your spirit ; yes, a moth's wing could have blown 
You toward them ! 'T was so nearly I fulfilled 
All that I promised. Therefore when I speak, 
You will, for justice's sake, concede I am 
No absolute bungler, no coarse-palated 
Plebeian, as to paradises. 

FAUST 

No. 
I will admit that. 

SATAN 

Good ! Now, I would make 
One final offer to you. 

Faust, I know 
In other regions, beneath other skies, 
One haven more, the only one of earth 
That can be judged in glory to surpass 
This paradise you entered not. My faith 
Is absolute that it is to your need 
Utterly moulded. Like your heart itself, 
Its halls are structured, destinate for you 
As perfect refuge. And I say to you: 
Give me the leave, and I will lead you there 
For one supreme and ultimate trial of choice 



act n] MR. FAUST 59 

That has no doubtful outcome. And my pledge 
Shall still be valid! If this refuge gives 
Not all that you desire, you still may claim 
My service as your slave. Thus do you risk 
No atom, but have gain of one last chance 
To win the paradise you hunger for! 

FAUST 

A pleasing logic; but I do not trust 
The mind behind it. 

SATAN 

Trust it, or distrust — 
What matter? — when the issue is so plain! 

FAUST 

Away ! Away ! 

SATAN 

Well, if this hope is vain 
To urge you, let despair serve in its stead 
As roweled spur. For see where now you stand: 
The mock of destiny — the man who lost 
All joys of the bright many that the world 
Cherishes ! Aye, and even lost his friend, 
His one deep lasting friend — and stood thereafter 
Fixed like a donkey. . . . Though I led you on 
From paradise to paradise, and none 
Sufficed you — that were surely better sport — 
Testing and trying with sublime contempt — 
Than finger-twirling! But not thus I lead. 
For now you shall, you shall have paradise! 

FAUST 

Deep in my soul, there is a sense that loathes 
Pacts with the Devil. Yet the sanctioned powers 
Established in the world have proved them void 
And ignorant of paradise. . . . Where lies it? 



60 MR. FAUST [act n 

SATAN 

Follow, and I will lead. 

FAUST 

A long path? 

SATAN 

Yes. 

FAUST 

On ! But your bondage waits you at the end. 

SATAN 

Ah, jester, jester! . . . Come — give me your hand! 

CURTAIN 



THE THIRD ACT 

The scene is the nave of a great cathedral. Two 
rows of many-shafted columns stretch bach to where, 
in the far background, rises the elaborate magnificence 
of the High Altar. 

The nave is empty, except for an occasional figure 
moving at the far end of the long central aisle, and an 
occasional attendant in sacerdotal robes making ready 
the Altar. 

Faust, entering from the right, and Satan, entering 
from the left, meet in the foreground. Satan is dressed 
in the dark robes of a priest. 

FAUST 

I care not for your masquerade attire; 

But let that pass. . . . Well, I have kept your hour. 

And this perhaps is not unfitting place 

To make confession that you weary me 

A little. In this running to and fro 

Over the earth, my inclination tires 

Of your companionship. I am resolved, 

If three days' time brings forth no new event, 

To end this, and reclaim you to obey 

My will. 

SATAN 

I am content; three days will serve. 

FAUST 

Good ! Meanwhile, 't is at least some recompense 
That we return from airy Eastern domes 



62 MR. FAUST [act m 

Glittering in blank sunlight, unto lands 

Where men erect their temples to the gods 

In forms whose light and shadow, stress and play 

Of arch and buttress, satisfies my blood 

Better than does barbaric loveliness. 

The dome that poises its clear perfect curves 

Rising above the palm-trees, with the look 

As of a winged bubble lightly resting 

On needless masonry — that syrnbolled form 

Of heavenly perfection never fills 

My heart as do these knotted buttresses 

And writhing ribs and vaults that strain in fight — 

And are victorious, as they raise to heaven 

The climbing spires of such an edifice. 

SATAN 

Quite right — but if you '11 let me interrupt — 
There is a woman yonder who, I think, 
Is waiting for a chance to speak to you. 
She looks at you, and hesitates, and turns — 
As though a little fearful to approach 
So great a person. 

FAUST 

Where is she? I see. 
I wonder if I know her. 

SATAN 

She is coming. 
[A young woman, "hardly more than a girl, comes 
from between the pillars and approaches Faust, 
Satan withdraws a little as she approaches, 

THE WOMAN 

I did not want to interrupt your talk; 
But, Mr. Faust, I wished so much to speak 
To you. You do not know me? 



act m] MR. FAUST 63 

FAUST 

Why, it seems . . . 

THE WOMAN 

Of course you do not; why should you remember? 
But I have seen your face so many times 
When you perhaps not noticed me at all, 
That I feel half-acquainted. Mr. Brander 
Speaks of you, too, so much that I have grown 
To think I know you. 

FAUST 

Ah; yes, Brander. . . . 

THE WOMAN 

Still 
I have not told you who I am, and you 
Do not yet know me. I am Mrs. Brander. 

FAUST 

What ! Mrs. Brander ! Ah, delighted . . . yes. . . . 

THE WOMAN 

You had not heard that we were married? 

FAUST 

No. 
Of course, I am astounded ; it 's delightful — 
And most surprising. 

THE WOMAN 

It was very sudden — 
While you were gone. 

FAUST 

I see. Yes, I 'm surprised 
And charmed. It 's strange, at first I could not 

bring 
You to my memory. 



64 MR. FAUST [act hi 



THE WOMAN 














I don't believe 




That you can yet! 








FAUST 




Why. . 


• • 




THE WOMAN 
















I don't wonder at it. 


I used to whisk about and peer at you 




As you came 


in. . 


• • 






FAUST 












Are 


you then . 


. . then are 


you . . . 


Midge? 










MIDGE 


Yes! 


exactly. 







FAUST 

This is very charming. 
Now I remember perfectly, of course, 
Dear Mrs. Brander! I shall hope to see 
Brander himself to-morrow. Give him, please, 
My warmest wishes. 

MIDGE 

We shall hope to see you 
In our apartment soon. It 's very tiny 
And in a quite unfashionable street; 
But it looks out across a bit of park 
To westward, as I 've always hoped it would. 
Some days the sunset lights are lovely there. 
You must come look at them. 

FAUST 

Thank you — indeed 
I shall be very glad to ! 

MIDGE 

And I know — 



act m] MR. FAUST 65 

How shall I say it ? — that you '11 think me strange, 
And that I cannot ever be your friend 
As Mr. Brander is. I know so little — 

FAUST 

Dear Mrs. Brander! 

MIDGE 

But I am so eager 
That you should give me just a little trial — 
I want so much to know you, and so much 
He should not lose you. . . . 

FAUST 

Why, you make me feel 
Quite like a monster ! 

MIDGE 

Then you '11 come? 

FAUST 

I '11 come ! 

MIDGE 

Good-bye — and don't forget me. 

[Midge gives him her hand, and moves away smiling. 

FAUST 

Well, of all 
Impossible, grotesque, outrageous tricks 
That Brander could have played upon himself! 
Married — the fool, the fool ! — And yet she is 
Curiously sweet and fresh, that kitchen-maid. 

SATAN 

Are you quite through? 

FAUST 

Quite, thank you. ... It is strange. . . . 
But I forget; you are not interested. 
What is it you would say now? 



66 MR. FAUST [act m 

SATAN 

I have things 
Graver to speak of than admiring ladies 
Or Gothic architecture. Here, to-day, 
Unto your doubting eyes there shall be made 
A revelation of profounder scope 
Than aught that life has brought you. 

FAUST 

The hour strikes 
Tardily; I am wearier than I was 
When on this trial we entered. 

SATAN 

You have looked 
Askance at me these many days, perplexed 
To reconcile the fountains of my will 
With my strange acts, and with the dark report 
That you have heard concerning me. Dear friend, 
Be you not angry, now I say to you 
In full confession, that from day to day 
I have deceived you: I have hid my face 
Even from my friend: I have with doubtful mask 
In alien guises tempted you, to try 
Your metal. But the hour of trial is past; 
The event is sure ; and now I ope my heart 
And show to you what few of living men 
Have guessed — -my final secret. 

FAUST 

Play no tricks. 
Before me, Satan; try no mumming game. 
If you speak truth, let riddles cloak it not. 

SATAN 

Listen, and be truth's judge. I am not such 
As men esteem me; and my spirit's springs 



act in] MR. FAUST 67 

Rise not from buried and infernal realms, 
But like your own, out of the fount of God 
They have their being. I, though lowliest far, 
Yet am a servant of the House of God — 
Deputed to mine office by His hand, 
And on His mission. 

FAUST 

You are trifling with me. 

SATAN 

I speak the gospel of the living God. 

FAUST 

Are you not Lord of Evil? God doubtless asks 
That service of you? 

SATAN 

God is infinite, 
Likewise His wisdom. His omniscience wills 
That I go forth among the haunts of men 
And offer evil to their touch. Thereby, 
Some spurn me — and the force whereby they spurn 
Lifts them up nearer to His arms. Some take 
The sin I offer, fall from grace, go down — 
And lost in fathomless gulfs of wickedness, 
Cry out with utter yearning to His love 
That it may save them, and repentant turn 
Their prodigal faces toward His doors again, 
Never to wander more. But some few souls, 
Who neither spurn temptation nor repent 
After their fall — these unregenerate 
It is mine office wholly to destroy 
And cleanse the universe for the praise of God. 
Thus does all evil serve His mighty throne, 
And all return to Him. 



68 MR. FAUST [act hi 

FAUST 

I have no power 
To take the measure of the words you speak. 
Why tell me such things? 

SATAN 

I would tell you all 
And show to you at last your destiny. 
The vanities of the world, the woes and sins, 
Are but the acid by whose fiery touch 
I sort the gold from out the transient brass 
And purify and fine it that it be 
Worthy God's altar. My beloved friend, 
Such was your trial ; thus have I tempted you 
With things averse to God, with forms and faiths 
Outcast and separate from Him. You have seen 
The whole world's vanities ; you have come to know 
That in this world's illusion is no power 
Whose love is refuge: even the living death 
Of cold Nirvana frights you. Thus at last, 
Knowing that you are powerless, and the world 
Bare of salvation for your feebleness, 
You stand on this great threshold; and your eyes 
That see despair and loneliness shall raise 
Their sight to heaven ; and peace shall fold you 

round ; 
And God, who is our Father, shall be yours. 

FAUST 

This is not truth! My fevered eyes are weak 
To look into this glowing maze of fire 
With vision. All the ramparts of the world 
Reel round me. I have scoffed God all my days, 
Believing pain — your province of the world — 
Proof of His non-existence. And you come 



act in] MR. FAUST 69 

Crying His glory, testifying His faith, 
Exhorting me to seek Him. ... I am lost 
Where naught is known to me. 

SATAN 

He is your hope, 
Your sole salvation in a universe 
Where never other form shall comfort you — 
A waif except for Him. So have all souls — 
The holy and the pure — from age to age 
Learned, homesick for His home. Their frustrate 

hopes, 
Their burdens heavier than by mortal strength 
Can be sustained, their impotence, bow down 
Each spirit : and it cries : " O God, support 
My helplessness; unto Thy perfect will 
Do I resign my vain and evil hopes, 
My burdens; and Thy Will Be Done Forever." 
Thus, with arms folded on despairing breast, 
With head bowed to the inscrutable decree, 
They seek Him: and a sudden glory fills 
The humbled bosom; all His stars and thrones 
Shine down upon it; all His majesty 
Enters that lowly door, lifts up, sustains 
The sundered soul; and His beneficence 
With more than father-love enfolds the heart 
Joined to His own forever. From His light 
Reflected radiance pours; to the dark sight 
Comes glimpse of the high justice of God's will; 
And all roads lead to Heaven, and all hearts lie 
Within His love, and all 's well with the world. 
[Deep organ music begins to roll through the arches 
of the cathedral. Candles are lighted one by one 
on the High Altar. Worshippers begin to enter the 



70 MR. FAUST [act hi 

nave: they pass down the long central aisle and 
gather in groups at the far end, near the Altar. 
Faust stands leaning against a pillar, silent and lost 
in meditation. 

Brander enters among the worshippers. He passes 
the spot where Faust is standing, glances at him and 
stops, astonished. 

BRANDER 

You have come back! I had not heard of it. 
Where have you been these many months? I long 
To talk with you. 

FAUST 

Yes, come and see me soon. 
It 's a long story. ... I congratulate you 
Upon your marriage. . . . 

BRANDER 

Then you know. . . . 

FAUST 

She came 
And spoke to me a little while ago. 

BRANDER 

It must seem strange to you beyond my power 
Ever to quite unravel. But for me 
All things are clear; and to my blinded sight 
Morning has come — in this thing, as in all 
The doubts that once enslaved me. 

FAUST 

Do you mean . . . 

BRANDER 

Come here aside before the service starts. 
I owe it you to tell you. I have changed 
In your long absence. . . . 



act m] MR. FAUST 71 

FAUST 

These are curious words. 
I do not understand. 

BRANDER 

To understand, 
You must hear all. You know my life — how vain 
Its occupations, how absorbed I moved 
In this day's folly and to-morrow's lure — 
How petty trifles made my whole small round 
Of being — selfish trifles, nothing worth, 
Stained with a cruelty that I would forget. 
That night we talked together — you and I 
And Oldham — in your rooms, I wandered home 
Sorely distressed. For you had stirred in me 
A gnawing doubt whether the whole of life 
Was not mere child's play. 

FAUST 

I am sorry if — 

BRANDER 

It was the kindest act man ever did 

In all my life ! I peered into my heart : 

I saw myself Judas to innocence, 

Betraying lightly with a careless kiss 

A mortal body and immortal soul; 

I saw no thing in all my days to claim 

A sane man's approbation; one by one 

Each glittering bauble that I late had loved 

Crumbled to dust beneath the parching fire 

Of reason. . . . And that night, I walked in Hell. 

EAUST 

Poor Brander! And my mocking did all this? 

BRANDER 

Thank God for it ! That night I saw my j oys 






72 MR. FAUST [act hi 

Like some rank thicket of bright vanities 
Masking a precipice. A sense of sin 
And loathing overcame me, and the power 
Of utter terror filled me. I beheld 
The evil riot of gross earthy things 
That had o'ergrown me. Like a burden lay 
That sense upon me, and it pressed me down 
To a despondence deep beyond all words, 
Beyond all thought. And no escape I saw 
Except the bullet. . . . 

FAUST 

What a faith we pin 
Upon that bullet ! 

BRANDEB. 

Thus the doubtful days 
Passed like a nightmare. Till, one Sabbath morn, 
As restlessly I paced, some random mood 
Led me to enter this cathedral's doors 
At hour of service. As I knelt, with lips 
Unknown to prayer, the mighty music rolled 
Over my heart like an all-purging flood, 
And a voice chanted : " He that loveth life 
Shall lose it; he that hateth this world's life 
Shall keep the life eternal." And a voice 
Shortly thereafter sang, in angel tones: 
" Come, let our feet return unto the Lord ; 
For He hath torn, and He will heal us." And 
My soul cried : " Yield thy burdens to the Lord, 
Upon His love cast thine unworthy self, 
And bid His Will Be Done." 

And then my soul 
Melted as in the warmth of His embrace. 



act m] MR. FAUST 73 

My guilt was gone like night before the sun: 

Light blinded me; an infinite love and joy 

Lifted me up, a child again, from earth 

Into such regions as my mortal speech 

Can never utter. And from that hour forth, 

God has been with me. . . . Now you know my tale. 

FAUST 

You teach me more of marvels than I guessed 
Was yet unlearned by me. 

BRANDER 

No words can teach 
These marvels to a heart that has not known 
God's glories. 

FAUST 

Then this mystery of the heart 
Is what men mean when of the faith of God 
They speak? I thought 'twas dogma, service, 

prayer ; 
But this is life, is vision. 

BRANDER 

Aye, and more! 
Now do I walk in meadows of calm light ; 
The love of God is over me; I faint 
Almost beneath its sweetness and wild joy. 
My whole heart's toil is how to merit it 
Even a little. 

satan (raising his hand to bless) 

By the grace of God 
You shall be worthy servant, O my son. 

FAUST 

This, then, is what God's vision-seers behold — 
This revelation veiled unto mine eyes — 



74 MR. FAUST Tact hi 

This love unf elt by me — this light of dawn 

Beyond our darkened night. ... I was too far 

Estranged from Him, of too unworthy will, 

Bowed by too sore a burden. . . . 

[The music of the organ rolls forth once more; and, 

at the far end of the nave, the choir takes up the 

music. 

Voices Singing 

From the waters of Zion, 
From the fountains of peace, 
Pour the floods on whose bosom 
Thy seeking shall cease. 

There the winds of His garments 
Shall lull thee to rest. 
There the night of His watching 
Shall enter thy breast. 

Thou shalt sleep, and awaken; 
On His morrow, to be 
As a star in His heavens, 
A wave in His sea. 

FAUST 

With old, profound, unutterable grief 
My spirit speaks in me: as, many a time 
In childhood, at the hour of evening dusk, 
When all the room was still and shadowy, 
I, at my mother's knee, wept out my heart 
And knew not why I wept. And I am drawn 
Out of myself upon the music's tide, 
With nameless sorrowing, with childlike pain — 



act m] MR. FAUST 75 

As though in careless play-hours of the day 
I had done hurt to someone that I loved. 
Ah, I am homesick; and in all the world 
There is no knee at which I can weep out 
My loneliness. There is no breast of peace 
And silence and forgiveness for this child 
In any dusk-strewn chamber. . . . 

BRANDER 

There is God! 

FAUST 

O God, can Thine arms fold me? Can my weight 

Of loneliness and failure and despair 

With the day's fruitage, find a child's release 

In Thy great tenderness? I am a child; 

And life's vast terrors gather round my soul; 

And I am frightened. I am weary, Lord! 

It darkens ; and the storms creep on with night ; 

The shadows come; the wanderer would turn home. 

[Faust falls to his knees; lie bows his head. Again 

the organ throbs, the choir sings. 



Voices Singing 

To His peace shalt thou yield thee; 
In His love shalt thou sleep ; 
All the rills of thy valleys 
Shall merge in His deep. 

To His hands shalt thou offer 
All hope thou hast known. 
His hope and His glory 
Shall compass thine own. 



76 MR. FAUST [act m 

And the vain stars of longing 
Shall fade in His sun; 
And the vain hand shall stay; 
And His Will Shall Be Done. 



SATAN 

Let us beside our brother kneel in prayer 

Beseeching mercy. 

[Satan and Brander kneel beside Faust. 

BBANDEB 

Brother in the Lord, 
Let us together from devoted hearts 
Repeat: " Thy Will Be Done." 
[Faust continues to kneel in silence. The music 
ceases. 

BBANDEB 

Faust, let us pray: 
" Father, we do beseech Thee for Thy light "... 

SATAN 

Brother, pray thus : " Thy Will Be Done "... 
faust (rising) 

What will? . . . 

BBANDEB 

Faust ! 

FAUST 

Lost is my way among eternal shadows. 
Darkened is every light; and clouds are rolled 
With blackening curtain over all the stars 
Within my heaven. But I stand upright 
Now to the end, no traitor to that dawn 
I cannot image. 

SATAN 

What do you mean? 



act m] MR. FAUST 77 

FAUST 

Begone, 
Judas ! . . . 

Ah, Brander, would that I could yield 
Myself to Him who has received your burdens! 
But to me seems it as another sleep, 
Like that Nirvana which I put aside 
In other gardens of temptation. Sleep — 
Sleep that should have no waking — happy sleep — 
An anodyne for which my spirit yearns 
But dare not take — a yielding to some Will, 
Whose Will, we know not, nor do greatly care 
So long it be not our will. . . . 

Thus may yield 
The weary ; I am weary, but not yet 
To such last slumber. Thus may yield the base; 
I am not base. Thus may those spirits yield 
Who, poisoned by some madness in their blood, 
Despise life's being; but not yet will I 
So utterly despise it. Though in gulfs 
Of yet unsounded ruin I should die 
At the end miserably, I still shall seek 
In life itself my refuge: not in God 
That stands apart from life, on heights of peace. 
All my desires, my visions, my dreams, my unrest, 
My loathing and my longing will I clutch 
And cry : " With all its bitterness on my head, 
My Will be done, not Thy Will! " 

BRANDEE 

Blasphemy ! 
Ah, Faust, what madness ! . . . 



78 MR. FAUST [act hi 

FAUST 

With calm sight, I speak 
No blasphemy, but truth. Shall I buy peace 
So easily? Toss my burdens to God's Will — 
Into the fathomless void of that unknown? 
Such were the last, the great apostacy. . . . 
I go into a darkness past your thought — 
Into an emptiness you know not of — 
A night profounder that it late has held 
Marsh-lights of promise. My last altar lies 
Smoking in ruins ; and I stand alone 
Of all the universe. But my Will be done! 
My errant tortured Will, my bitter Will, 
My Will, my Will! 

BRANDER 

Flee, ere the awful wrath 
Of God smite down these walls, these poisoned stones, 
That hear your words ! Flee, ere the heavens rain 

forth 
Lightnings to blast us for these horrors ! 
FAUST XT , 

Nay! 
In this dim hour of desolation's reign 
Upon my soul, I summon to my soul 
All powers that good or evil may consign 
To the most lonely man in all the world; 
I lift my voice, burdened with all the weight 
Of loathing and of longing, and I cry: 
My curse upon Thee, lure of dying hearts ! 
May lightnings smite Thy altars back to earth! 

BRANDER 

Father, forgive! He knows not what he does. . . . 

CURTAIN 



THE FOURTH ACT 

The scene is a public lecture-hall. To the left rises 
a platform, on which stands a reading-desk. To the 
right are rows of chairs arranged as for an audience. 
In the front row of these sit four old men, patiently 
and silently waiting. One is reading a newspaper. 

Suddenly there bursts into the hall a rout of wildly 
gay and dancing mashers: Harlequin, Columbine, a 
Pig, Pantaloon, an enormously tall Ghost, Clowns, a 
Skeleton, Ballet-girls, Oriental Princesses, Monks, 
Courtiers, Turks and Jew Pedlers. The first few at- 
tempt to draw back on seeing the chairs and the four 
old men; but they are pushed on by those behind. 
Once in, they all circle about in a crazy dance, sing- 
ing over and over the same verse. 

THE MASKERS 

Oh, children, children, New Year's Day 
Is more than half a year away. 
And we might get most awful dry 
If we should wait for the Fourth of July. 
So let us celebrate now and here 
With rah, rah, rah and a bottle of beer! 
[One of the maskers, who is dressed as a clown, 
raises his hands, ineffectually trying to hush the 
rest. 
clown (shouting) 

Stop ! Stop ! I want to teach another verse 



80 MR. FAUST [act iv 

To you before we go back to the others. 
[Loud laughter. The song continues. 
the skeleton (shouting) 
Is n't one bad enough? 

CLOWN 

A poor thing — but 
It is mine own. 

THE PIG 

So much the worse for you! 
one of the old men (rising) 

Gentlemen ! There 's to be a lecture here. 
clown 

Is that all? Well, I '11 give it you myself. 

A MONK 

Not if we see you first ! 

THE PIG 

My God ! Let 's run ! 

SKELETON 

Back! Or the others will drink all the punch! 
[The mob of maskers turbulently surges out again, 
leaving the hall quiet and empty except for the four 
old men. 

AN OLD MAN 

They are a noisy lot. 

SECOND OLD MAN 



THE FIRST OLD MAN 



Yes. 

There must be 



Party upstairs? 

SECOND OLD MAN 

Yes, I suppose there is. 

FIRST OLD MAN 

They begin early. 



act iv] MR. FAUST 81 

THIRD OLD MAN 

Early? Yes, or late. 
This is the end of last night's party, which 
Began at twelve, and likely '11 last till noon. 
I know, for I 'm the janitor. 

FIRST OLD MAN 

Well! Well! 
[Two men enter, look around and take seats in the 
chairs set for the audience. One carries a small black 
surgical case; the other has a green bag under his 
arm. 

DOCTOR 

We seem to be a little early — or 
Have we made some mistake? 
lawyer 

No, ten 's the hour. 
But I was anxious that we should be prompt, 
And so have rather overdone our haste. 

DOCTOR 

It does n't matter ; we can wait a bit. 
How curiously impatient, though, you are 
To hear this talk! I personally have doubts 
Whether it 's worth our trouble. 
lawyer 

Well, I know 
The man, however slightly ; you do not, 
And so can hardly share my expectation. 
But he has been, throughout these many years, 
So secretive, so self-contained, so deep 
In matters that I could not guess, that now, 
When he at last promises to proclaim 
Some strange discovery, I half believe 
It will be worth our coming. 



82 MR. FAUST [act iv 

[Two women enter together. The younger one is 
leading a child by the hand. The older, a gaunt* 
s pins terly -looking figure, peers about with a near- 
sighted glance. 
merchant's wife 

Take that seat. 
And now be quiet. 

CHILD 

Mother, will he have 
The Devil with him? 
merchant's wife 

I don't know. The child 
Has been completely crazy since I told her 
That I would bring her with me. 

OLD WOMAN 

I am just 
A little curious myself. I learned 
When I was young all that they thought was known 
About the Devil; and if this Mr. Faust 
Has really made some new discovery 
About him, it seems well that even the young 
Should be informed of it. 

[A number of detached men and women enter and 
take seats silently. They are followed by two 
plumbers in overalls, carrying the tools of their 
trade still with them. 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Whew, but the boss will skin us for this trick! 

OLD PLUMBER 

Go, if you like. But I intend to stay. 

I have not been, through seventeen long yeard, 

Philosopher myself, now to let slip 

A chance of hearing such a talk as this. 



act iv] MR. FAUST 83 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Oh, I won't go. 

OLD PLUMBER 

You 'd better not. They say 
That all the rumors wholly underrate 
The real importance of his talk to-day. 
I 've been informed, on good authority, 
That he will have the Devil on the platform 
And publicly enchain him to a cart 
For all of us to see. 

[The two plumbers have taken their seats. A man 
behind them leans forward now and interrupts them. 

BUTCHER 

What's that? A cart? 
He means to drive the Devil as a horse? 

OLD PLUMBER 

Quite probably, quite probably. 

BUTCHER 

Well, that 
Will be outrageous, in these troubled times 
Of strikes and lock-outs. Without any doubt, 
If he goes trying to harness up the Devil, 
It will precipitate a teamsters' strike. 
Using non-union horses always does. 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Do you think that? Why, that would be a shame, 
When times are bad already. 

CHILD 

Mother, Mother! 
Will there be moving pictures? 

merchant's wife 

I don't know. 



84 MR. FAUST [act iv 

Don't talk so loud. 

[Two prosperous-looking men enter. One is elderly, 

the other young. 

BANKER 

Do not apologize 
Now that you've brought me. As I said at first, 
I am prepared to see a mountebank 
Perform his pretty tricks of eloquence 
To set the crowd agape. Why, once a week 
The Ethical Society hires one 

To work the same performance — quite the same 
Each time. Unearth a few forgotten doubts, 
Or dig your elbow into some new dogma, 
And you will see the mob fawn at your feet, 
Believing you the greatest mind since Plato. 

RICH YOUNG MAN 

I 'm sure he is n't that kind. 

BANKER 

We shall see! 
And afterwards, the drinks shall be on you. 
[A gawky young man who has flour in his hair, and 
a vivacious and pertly dressed girl enter together. 

GIRL 

I go to all the lectures that I can. 

I do think culture is the grandest thing; 

And one acquires it so easily 

Nowadays that one should n't let it slip. 

BAKER 

I 'd go to lectures, too, if I could go 
Always with you. 

GIRL 

Well, now, perhaps I '11 try 
To educate you! 



act iv] MR. FAUST 85 

BAKER 

Oh, I wish you would! 
[Satan enters, dressed as an artisan. He takes a 
seat in the far corner, out of sight of the platform. 
Two young men enter. Both have books under their 
arms. 

YOUNG STUDENT 

His is the subtlest mind I ever knew. 
The gulfs through which he whirled bewildered me 
When he would talk. So I am quite prepared 
For a great treat to-day. 

YOUNGER STUDENT 

Oh, I forgot 
My note-book. Can you tear a sheet from yours? 
satan (to a man beside him who rises, apparently tired 
of waiting) 

What, going? Well, I would n't, if I were you. 
You ought to hear this : I have had a hand 
In getting him to speak; and I am sure 
There will be something doing. 

THE MAN 

Well, I '11 stay, 
Since you, of the committee, vouch for it. 
[More people enter and take their seats. 
young plumber ( to his companion) 

What do you get by being philosopher? 
I don't see how you do it. I could never 
Think about nothing all the time, like you. 

OLD PLUMBER 

Perhaps your mind is not just made for it. 
It takes a thinker, that it does. And I 
Did not get into it so easy, either. 
I read a lot of books before I saw 



86 MR. FAUST [act iv 

The greatness of Philosophy. Now I wonder 
How I got on without it. Why, to-day 
I could not clean a sewer in peace of mind 
If I did not know that, when I got home, 
I could philosophize on Space and Time. 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

It must be wonderful to know these things. 
\Brander and Midge enter together. They seem to 
find some difficulty in choosing their seats. 

MIDGE 

Are you quite sure that we can hear him here? 

BRANDER 

Yes ; and besides, I do not wish to sit 

Too near the front. I 'd rather not have come 

At all to-day. But you . . . 

MIDGE 

Oh, don't go back 
Now on your promise ! I must hear him speak. 
I must, I must. I cannot tell you why; 
I do not know. But I have never seen 
A face that seemed to promise me so much — ■ 
Things that I cannot utter, cannot think. 

BRANDER 

I never want to see his face again. 
I shall try not to listen. 

CHILD 

Mother, when 
Will the show start? 
merchant's wife 

Hush, very soon ! Yes, see — 
There he is coming in. 

CHILD 

Oh, goody, goody! 



act iv] MR. FAUST 87 

[Faust enters the hall and mounts the platform. 
He busies himself for a moment adjusting the read- 
ing desk; then turns toward the audience, gripping 
the desk steadily, and waits a moment more for the 
stir to subside. 

FAUST 

I come before you with unwilling lips — 
Not led by eagerness, or wont of speech; 
Being not of those who easily proclaim 
Small miracles to move you. But the force 
Of grave necessity has bid me cast 
All thought save one aside, and in your midst, 
Utter strange words, with lips that must obey 
The soul that wills not silence. 

For I come 
Announcing not the common verities 
Of learned books, or laboratory lore, 
Or ancient heresies ; as speaks the fool, 
So speak I — from my heart. What I have seen, 
That shall you see, and with grim gladness hold 
Close in your hearts. Yes, all the world shall see 

it — 
I am a tower burning to light the world ! 
(He pauses a moment, meditatively) 

old woman (whispering) 

He has a good opinion of himself. 

FAUST 

I have beheld the toil and pain of life, 
Its emptiness and defeat; I have beheld 
Hearts, weary with recurrence of the days 
That held no sweetness, turn in trust to where 



88 MR. FAUST [act iv 

In high aerial spaces far from earth 

God in his heaven to all the weary ones 

Offers a refuge. And in such a mood 

Was I, too, led toward heaven by one whom now 

I know my foe — Satan. Toward God I turned, 

Seeking in Him fulfilment of all hopes 

That earth had thwarted. Then, in the hour of 

prayer 
And revelation, from my deepest breast 
Flashed lightnings. And I saw the Lord of Hosts 
High on a mountain, inaccessible 
To yearning men, who, mastered by a dream, 
Turn skyward from our dark and struggling earth. 
I saw the crafty Satan urging on 
The heavenward-yearning myriads, while the world 
Lay like a stagnant quagmire, to his. sway 
Wholly abandoned, and man's mortal house 
Burned in fierce conflagration of corruption. 
And lo ! the lightnings from my heart smote forth 
Across the heavens; and God dissolved like cloud, 
And through the cloud peered Satan's sinister face. 

Friends : God is dead ; your God and mine is dead. 

And Satan in his place — Satan who is 

The father of the gods — lures on your hearts 

Unto an idol in the untrodden skies, 

That, while ye dream oblivious in the void, 

The earth may crumble. Or if God there be, 

He is the God of dying hearts and spent — 

A deity of chaos, for whose ends 

One thing alone is mete — ruin of life, 

Of loathings and of longings that on earth 

Restlessly grapple with the powers of Hell. 



act iv] MR. FAUST 89 

I know not if in regions yet unguessed 
Some gods may dwell, of nature fit to guide 
Us, the adventurers of an earthly fight. 
But I have seen with eyes that cannot lie 
• That they reside not in this Devil's net — 
This heavenly trust, this labyrinth of peace, 
Which draws men on to nothingness. . . . 

And I cry 
With all the passion of my baffled soul — 
Cast down your God! Cast down your peace and 

trust 
In His far Will ! It is a solace mete 
For slaves, not men. With bitter hand, destroy 
This idol of destruction! Smite all haunts 
Of faith and resignation and defeat 
And rest and peace and comfort. Heaven and earth 
Alike are poisoned: somnolence in heaven, 
Decay on earth is regnant. Every faith 
And law and nation must in wreck go down 
For us who see the death that taints their halls ; 
And ruin shall walk reckless through the world, 
Destroying tombs where life is daily slain! 
(Faust pauses) 
brander (rises suddenly from his place in the audience) 
My friends, I came to listen, not to speak. 
But when such words as these from impious lips 
Fall lightly, I must rise here to refute 
Their poisonous message. Three days since, I stood 
With this man in the sacred halls of God, 
And witnessed in his heart the glory grow 
Of God's bright hope. Then suddenly from Hell, 
Or from his own deep, labyrinthine heart, 



90 MR. FAUST [act iv 

Sprang fiends to snatch him back from heaven's clear 

gate 
And God's deliverance. And his bitter lips, 
By thirst so nearly quenched made bitterer yet, 
Cried blasphemies against the powers of heaven 
And all bright starry hopes that light our days 
With faith and glory. And the hand of God, 
Inscrutably withheld, smote him not dumb, 
But suffered him to go. Now in our sight 
He rises to proclaim his searing doubt, 
His hot destroying passion, and tears down 
Our fairest altars. I, who was his friend, 
Hereby renounce him; and in sober words 
Counsel all men to flee the company 
Of one who hates the great hopes of the world! 
[As Brander sits down, there is some scattered ap- 
plause in the audience. Faces are turned toward him. 
Midge sits motionless, her face buried in her hands. 

FAUST 

I scarce foresaw that my laborious task 

Should profit by the aid of willing hands 

So freely offered. Well, the Devil moves still 

Unchained on earth; and while he toils, your toil 

Is of small matter. You have ranged yourself 

With things fast dying ; and our feet — the feet 

Of trampling hordes — shall pass above your head, 

As we shall pass over all creeds and laws, 

All stately chambers and respected homes 

And hearths and council-halls and sleek vile marts — 

We, the destroyers of destruction! 

BUTCHER 

Here! 
Don't you go shaking any fist at me! 



act iv] MR. FAUST 91 

GIRL 

I think it 's awful. Someone ought to stop him. 
merchant's wife 
The man is crazy! 

OLD PLUMBER 

Say! Would you destroy 
Space and Time, too? 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Hooray for hell broke loose! 

BUTCHER 

Out with him ! He 's an anarchist ! 

BANKER 

I 'm not 
Religious ; but I cannot stand for that. 

YOUNG STUDENT 

Oh, let him have a chance! 

BUTCHER 

Not if I know it! 
Damn such a man! 

[Satan suddenly rises in his place with commanding 
gestures. The people stare at him, and after a mo- 
ment are silent to hear him speak. 

SATAN 

My friends, I think we all — 
Or most of us — agree that talk like this 
Is a destructive influence, to be met 
With frowns, in justice to society. 
Such words disgrace humanity, affront 
Respectability, and fill with shame 
Our hearts for such a speaker. Yet the rogue 
Requires but rope to save the law the toil 
Of trial and execution. I bespeak, 



92 MR. FAUST [act iv 

Therefore, your patience for this gentleman; 
Till he has time to wind the hempen knot 
Securely round his throat, let us sit by 
And hear him further. 

FAUST 

Thank you. You begin 
Well in my service. 

SATAN 

Aye, indeed, indeed! 
You don't suppose a mouse-trap baits itself? 
Friends, let us hear him. 

RICH YOUNG MAN 

That sounds sensible. 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Let each dog have his day. 

OLD PLUMBER 

Sit down! Shut up! 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Leave me alone! 

SATAN 

One moment more, I pray, 
Of your kind patience. Sir, ere you proceed, 
I have a word to give you. I have heard 
Tales of your cleverness in foiling twice 
The Devil who sought to lead you to resign 
Your will to his. Perhaps it was not well 
That you so spurned his euthanasia. 
By your own devious path, you come at last 
To where all facts are vain, all visions fade, 
And your old wager is a laughing-stock, 
So valueless your will, so vain your power 
To shape one end of hope. Life crumbles, falls, 
Around you; and your kind with horror see 



act iv] MR. FAUST 93 

Your utter nakedness. But I have brought 

A little present for you: not so nice 

As two the Devil once offered in its place; 

Yet 't will suffice. Men who would cheat the Devil 

Come, with a curious unanimity, 

To where the lump of lead becomes a boon 

Unto the soul rejecting easier sleep. 

The Devil claims his own in his own day. 

(He approaches the platform, and offers to Faust 

a pistol) 

YOUNG STUDENT 

What is he saying? 

CHILD 

Are they going to shoot? 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Bang yourself one ! That 's what it 's for. 

BUTCHER 

Good riddance! 
There is n't room on earth for jokes like you! 

faust (accepts the pistol) 

In such a spirit as you offer it, 

I do accept this token. In my hand 

At least it shall lie safe, nor be a god: 

I worship not the bullet. . . . But beware 

What mummer's part you play in this strange scene. 

For by the victory I have won of late, 

I am your master! And in grovelling dust 

Before me you shall cringe, though all the world 

Shun me, your conqueror. Vilest of slaves! 

Accept your servitude! 

BUTCHER 

Here ! That 's enough ! 



94 MR. FAUST [act iv 

GIRL 

You brute! 

SATAN 

Your slave. Command, and it shall be 
Fulfilled. A little snarling now and then 
Means naught. 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

I will not let an honest man, 
A worthy citizen, be spoken to 
Like that by a damn anarchist while I 
Can raise a hand! 

BUTCHER 

Nor I! 



merchant's wife 



Go after him! 



FAUST 

Silence! Let not your eager efforts prove 
You are the beast-herd he would bid you be! 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

What! Let us show him how to talk to us! 

SATAN 

See, on his forehead, see! Where the deep lines 
Meet — do you see the blackened cross that grows 
Each moment darker with the curse of God! 
He is branded, he is Cain! 

FAUST 

Down, slave! Fulfil 
Now my command, you who my bondsman are ! 
Seal on these eyes — too blind to take the light — 
Darkness ! And let me, turning from them, know 
They have not peered into my open heart. 
You are still my slave — though they are only fools. 



act iv] MR. FAUST 95 

YOUNG PLUMBER 

Damn your infernal soul! 

BUTCHER 

Hit him a crack! 

OLD WOMAN 

Stop all your noise. 

BUTCHER 

Here, let me go, you fool! 
[Suddenly aroused, some of the crowd surge for- 
ward toward the platform. From the back of the 
room someone hurls a chair, which strikes the great 
chandelier: the lights instantly go out, leaving the 
hall in total darkness. Confused cries, footsteps, 
blows, 

CRIES 

What 're you about ? . . . Let go ! . . . Where 
are the lights? . . . 

[Suddenly two wall-brackets are illuminated, dis- 
closing part of the crowd massed on the platform. 
As they surge back, there remains on the platform, 
fallen and motionless, the figure of Faust, He raises 
his head slowly. 

FAUST 

Ah, Satan! . . . worthy serf to my command! . . . 
Go ! I release you. For I would not die 
With such a slave — Nay, though I die alone. . . . 
[Suddenly the door bursts open, and in surge the 
maskers, in greater numbers and even wilder tumult 
than before. Dancing grostesquely, linked hand in 
hand, they zigzag through the hall, overturning 
chairs and singing at the top of their voices. 



96 MR. FAUST [act iv 

THE MASKERS 

Oh, children, children, children dear, 
We cannot wait for any New Year. 
So let us celebrate now and here 
With rah, rah, rah and a bottle of beer! 

CURTAIN 



THE FIFTH ACT 

The scene is once more Faustfs library. The dim 
slanting sunlight of late afternoon streams through the 
open windows, touching the gold of books and the 
brown of furniture with an enamel-like brilliancy. 

Brander and Faust's butler stand just inside the 
door. 

BUTLER 

I am afraid you cannot see him now. 
The doctor is still here. I do not know 
If anyone may see him. 

BRANDER 

I will wait 
A moment, and perhaps may see the doctor 
As he goes out. Have things been bad to-day? 

BUTLER 

Yes, sir. 

[The doctor enters from the door on the left. The 

'butler goes out. 

BRANDER 

How is he? 

DOCTOR 

As one might expect. 
The fever 's gone ; but strength has gone with it : 
No one can tell how long his heart will stand 
The strain. 



98 MR. FAUST [act v 

BRANDER 

You see no hope? 

DOCTOE 

I only see 
That we are doing all we can for him. 
Beyond that, I can say no more than you. 

BRANDER 

You think I should not see him? 

DOCTOR 

Oh, no harm. 
You might have seen him when you came this 

morning 
If you had waited. You can see him here. 
He wanted to be in this room again, 
And I make no objection. Well, good-bye. 
[The doctor goes out. Brander moves restlessly 
about the room. A moment later, the door on the 
left opens, and Faust, reclining in an invalid's chair, 
is wheeled into the room by the butler. He is clad in 
a long dressing-gown; he is very pale. The butler, 
after placing the chair before the fireplace, goes' 
out. Brander remains doubtfully in the background; 
Faust does not observe his presence. 

FAUST 

Again these walls ! — home to what barren dreams ! — 

And home to me ! O dreams and bitterness, 

How are you gilded by this setting light 

Of afternoon! Meseems I have not been 

Happy save here, where all unhappiness 

Of mine had source and root. That forest holds 

Now nothing grievous to my eyes that see 

What once they saw not. Sweetness like the light 

Of setting suns now lingers over it 



act v] MR. FAUST 99 

In my enchambering memory — Life, life 

With all its glow and wonder pours a flood 

On this strait room whence I have watched the 

world — 
Whence I must go with all my love and wonder 
As though no love and wonder I had won. 
[Faust bends his head, sinking into a daze of thought. 
Brander doubtfully approaches him, and at last 
touches his shoulder. 

BRANDER 

I have been heavy-hearted; but that thus 
I find you, overwhelms me. . . . 

FAUST 

Why thus sad 
Over milk so irrevocably spilled? 

BRANDER 

I cannot utter what is in my heart. 
It is as though I had with my own hand 
Stricken you down. And yet I did not dream 
Of what would follow. . . . O Faust, Faust, for- 
give me ! 

FAUST 

Forgive you? Aye, and thank you ! Greater things 
Hung imminent than you dreamed of. For you set 
Wild lightnings free in me that smote the dark 
Furled round me; and they grew and flashed and 

flamed 
Even as I fell. Aye, Brander, you who strove 
For my salvation should rej oice at last — 
Now, past all doubts and wanderings, I am saved! 

BRANDER 

Saved! Ah, impossible! 



100 MR. FAUST [act v 

FAUST 

Saved! And the light 
Of glory fills me, though my physical frame 
Totters on dissolution. I believe ! . . . 
The night is over. 

BRANDER 

Faust! O dearest friend! 
My heart refuses now to grasp such joy. 
If it were possible! Can, can it be 
That God has bent once more, and with cool touch 
Dispelled the feverous mists? Oh, I could weep 
With happiness to dream it! 

FAUST 

Nay, my words 
Mean more than you interpret. I am saved — 
Not as you count salvation. Nay, I come 
To one last refuge, finding all others vain. 
The common joys, the peace of nescience, 
The trust in some far Will, the hope to flame 
A beacon in the darkness of men's dreams : 
Driven forth from these, one citadel still lifts 
Heaven- f ronting : there I stand, delivered, free, 
Master again — that citadel, my soul. 
I have escaped from all the bondages; 
And now bow down to nothing. Joy or pain, 
Defeat or conquest^ good or evil, now 
Lure me no more. I will put hope in nothing 
Save in that whole strange glistening mortal life 
That past me streams unto an end sublime 
Whereof you know not. All our ends are folly, 
And win not what they seek; yet there is joy 
In seeking; and one end there is that shows 
A brighter glow. I am the watcher set 



act v] MR. FAUST 101 

Upon the heights. In my impassioned sight 
All life is holy that strives unto life: 
Death only is damnation. I will be 
More happy than the happiest man, more strong 
Than is the strongest! I will climb on the neck 
Of this great monster, Life, and guide its course — 
For I am master — toward that end I see 
Hidden afar off. 

BRANDER 

You are sick and spent. 
I should not thus — 

FAUST 

Fear not; I do not wander. 
Or can you understand? No, no, you cannot. 
And yet some tenderness from days long past 
Stirs in me with a hope for you once more — 
Hear me for one last time. 
[Faust touches a bell. The butler enters. 

FAUST 

Bring to me, please, 
That large black-covered manuscript I wrote 
Last night until the doctor took it from me. 
It is among the papers on my desk. 
[The butler searches, finds the note-book and places 
it on the table beside Faust. The butler goes out. 
Faust sits turning over the pages of the manuscript. 

FAUST 

Here to posterity I bequeath my soul — 
Worthless, perhaps, as heritage, but the all 
I have to give to them I love so much. 
These pages shall cry kinship to the few 
Who, finding solace nowhere, yet shall find 



102 MR. FAUST [act v 

Solace in fierce destruction that assails 
The folly and the madness of mankind. 
(He begins to read from the manuscript) 

Satan recedes; but thou who seemest near — 

O unborn man, whose soul is of my soul, 

Whose glory is of my glory — all my love 

Floods out like light from the down-going sun 

Toward thee, the nursling of a lofty line. 

Thou art my faith — man the divine to come — 

Man whom I loathe for that which he is not — 

Man, even now half divine because of all 

That shall spring from him in the days to be. 

Thou, too, shalt fight with Satan, as I fought, 

Yea, in eternal battles till the end. 

Thou shalt go with him past the lure of lust, 

The lure of power, the lure of that great sleep 

Nirvana; past the yet more luring sleep 

Where dreams assuage the soul to be a dream. 

Thou shalt go with him, yet apart from him 

And all his works. He has no part in thee. 

He is the chaos seething at earth's core — 

Remnant of times when out of chaos sprang 

Life's upward impulse. He is the darkness spread 

Ere yet was light — the matter ere was form — 

The vast inertia that on motion's heels 

Clings viper-like. Of life and form and growth 

He is negator; and his ceaseless joy 

Is to impede and drag to chaos back 

The shoot that toward the light triumphant springs. 

But vain his victories, though he lingers yet 
With slowly narrowing frontiers. Past his will, . 



act v] MR. FAUST 103 

Slowly the sons of light transcend, remould 
Their day and destiny; slowly there is born 
Order from chaos, flowers from formless mud, 
Light from the darkness, Faust's from Satan's soul. 

With laughing and with wonder and with triumph 

I take that life and clasp it to my breast — 

I, part of all, and all a part of me — 

Streaming a river flashing in the sun. 

I am drunk with the glory of that which tramps 

me down 
And passes and transcends me — and is mine ! 

I, one with thee, O child of Flame, behold 
Thy harvest — when the passion of the years 
Turns earthward, and in mastered order sets 
The house that is our dwelling. And therein, 
In the gold light of summer afternoons, 
With thee I too, careless and laughing, play 
Mid dreams and wonders that our will has made — 
Bathe in the beauty that our eyes have poured 
Upon the hills — and drink in thirsty draughts 
The happiness we have rained upon the earth. 

I sefe, with ultimate unshaken vision! 

I see the earthly paradise; I see 

Men winged with wonder on the future throne 

Up infinite vistas where life's feet shall climb. 

Out of the dust, out of the plant and worm, 

Out of ourselves about whose feet still clings 

The reptile-slime of our creation — lo ! 

Our children's children rise; and all my love 

Draws toward them and the light upon their brows. 



104 MR. FAUST [act v 

This is my faith ; this is my happiness ; 
This is my hope of heaven ; this is my God. 

BRANDER 

The eternal God in heaven forgive you this! 

FAUST 

The Devil I can foil, but not my friends ! 

Strange allies to his cause! Well, dusk was long 

My portion; now all gathering storms of hate 

Are less than naught to me. Six months ago, 

When here I stood that memorable night, 

My gloom was starless ; now one fiery star 

Pierces it. And this broken frame of mine 

Cannot annul that much of victory — 

The solace born of passion to destroy 

That shall survive me if indeed I die. 

Alone my life was lived; if now I go, 

It is alone into a quiet grave 

Above whose mound the fairer future days 

Shall pass, and I not know them. Yet my night 

Takes foregleam from the vision of that dawn 

And I am solaced. And I leave my solace 

As heritage to the ever widening few 

Who after me shall triumph more than I 

In dawns of flaming. 

BRANDER 

O my friend, my friend, 
I would my tongue could cry as* my heart cries — 
Turn back from darkness before the hour has 

struck ! 
Even yet may mercy fold you. God is great 
And tender; and perhaps His love may clasp 
Even your aloofness, if at last your heart 



act v] MR. FAUST 105 

Calls in repentance to Him. Faust, Faust, 
Sink your vain pride of spirit — kneel to Him — 
Beseech His mercy ere it is too late! 

FAUST 

I am no melancholy death-bed scene 

To claim your tears, dear Brander. Doubtless days 

Of infinite scope lie yet before me, since 

No oracle has foretold that I shall die. 

But if I die, then go I singing down, 

Not praying or repentant, to my grave. 

I would smite again the altar! I would smite 

The hearts bowed before it; all the world 

And the Beyond-world would I rend, having seen 

Serpents in their secret places. 

BRANDER 

Has no breath 
Of heavenly love touched this corrosive core 
Of hell-fire in you? 

FAUST 

There is none whose power 
Is half so mighty. 

BRANDER 

Through last night's long hours, 
Poor Midge, alone and comfortless, wept out 
Her heart, believing all that you had said. 
And when I spoke to her, she cried : " Go, go ! 
I am lost where none can help me ; all my dreams 
Shudder and perish, even as he has perished; 
Yet they shall live again — but he will die ! " . . . 
Thus darkness falls from you upon men's hearts. 
I know not if God's deep forgiving love 
To such as you is granted. . . . 



106 MR. FAUST [act 



FAUST 

Midge could tell 
A truer tale. Her eyes were full of light 
And wonder as she heard me. 

BRANDER 

And she now 
Weeps comfortless! 

FAUST 

And shall I then regret? 
Is her soul yours, that you appraise and know? 
Life stirs in her: and like the agonies 
Of all life's birth, it shakes her: yet one day 
She shall rise strong, sister to mighty winds, 
A new and holy wonder in her eyes. 
Tell her from me that I have not forgotten 
My promise in the church that I would come. 
But if I come not, let her come to me ! — 
Let her come with me on my luminous road. 

BRANDER 

Pity her, and the hosts that with her stand 
Shelterless from the blasts of your wild hate. 

FAUST 

Who loves must hate, who hates must burn with 

love. . . . 
I hate the world; but like the breath of life, 
Sustaining me even yet a little while, 
Is my surpassing love for its great hopes. 
Aye, in the hour when I knew myself alone, 
My hate cried : Smite ! — because of thy great love 
For one irradiant form that is to be. 
Now is my hate a lamp of tenderness — 
Now I destroy because I love beyond — 



act v] MR. FAUST 107 

I build, I triumph with bright domes that rise 
In laughing loveliness into the morning! 

BRANDER 

I love you and I pity you — and I go. 

FAUST 

We shall not meet again. 
[Brander goes out. 

FAUST 

He will go down 
Not singing, no, not singing! . . . 
(He once more takes up the manuscript, and turns 
to the last pages) 

And now, when from my shoulders like a load 
Begins to slip the weariness of life, 
And a new vigor fills me — now it seems 
That death is hovering close. O Grisly One, 
Whom once I thought a not unwelcome guest 
To my cold troubled house, I am not glad 
To hear thy steps without. For in my halls 
Lights kindle, and the music sobs and sings 
In ecstasy of other guests than thee. . . . 
(He takes up his pen and turns to the end of the 
manuscript, as if to write) 
Can this poor strength suffice me to complete 
These final words? Nay, better to leave unsaid 
The few last lines my vanity desires 
To tell and justify my end and fall 
Like flourish of bright trumpets. Let them sleep 
Unuttered; for the burden of my song 
Is voiced already in these labored leaves ; 
And it is well, unfinished and unclosed 
Should stop this record, whose concluding words 
Of fairer hope, of sheerer miracle, 



108 MR. FAUST [act v 

Some greater hand than mine shall some day write 
And seal the chronicle — nay, never seal it ! 
[The butler enters. 

BUTLER 

There is a man waiting to see you, sir. 

FAUST 

Let him come in. 

BUTLER 

I beg your pardon, sir — 
Can I do nothing for you? 

FAUST 

Thank you, nothing. 
[The butler goes out again. Satan enters. He is 
dressed in a long black cloak of foreign cut; for the 
first time, he has the look of sinister majesty ap- 
propriate to the Prince of Hell. 

SATAN 

Master, your slave is here! 

FAUST 

This fooling still? 

SATAN 

What little service would my conqueror wish? 

FAUST 

Peace from your childish talk. The game is done. 
Quite well you knew that, came I victor forth, 
I would not, for all treasure in the world, 
Have such an one as servant, who can serve 
No end that I desire. 

SATAN 

Aha ! At last 
Light penetrates that cobwebbed cranium, 
And I can laugh in public! All these months, 



act v] MR. FAUST 109 

I several times have come perilously near 
Bursting with mirth at the rare spectacle. 

FAUST 

Pray you, laugh freely. 

SATAN 

Nay, my mirth is spent. 
My heart is moved even toward an enemy, 
When on his head defeat its torrent pours. 
I offer you my sympathy. 

FAUST 

My thanks 
Are in appropriate measure tendered you. 

SATAN 

Distrust me not, for lo, the game is done — 

There are no battles more, no testings more 

To set between us. From the heart of life 

Have forces risen — aye, from the people's breast! — 

To seal the measure of defeat ; and now 

Why shall we quarrel further? 

FAUST 

Why, indeed? 

SATAN 

I hear that you are working on a book 
Recounting your adventures with the Devil. 
I hope 't is finished : it had better be ! 
You will not write large libraries, my friend, 
In what of life remains to you. 

FAUST 

It is 

Completed wholly. 

SATAN 

May I look at it? 



110 MR. FAUST [act v 

FAUST 

You may not. 

SATAN 

Ah, 't is a surprise for me ! 

FAUST 

Possibly. 

SATAN 

Well, you work late into dusk. 
Dusk falls about you; soon the night will come, 
And silence. . . . Has an oracle in your heart 
Whispered the tidings of that night? Or have 
The pages of the prophets told to you 
What waits within that darkness? 

FAUST 

There waits sleep. 
But I have lived, and do not fear life's last 
Inevitable word. 

SATAN 

My lips are sealed, 
Though I would fain prepare you for that first 
And awful moment when, beyond death's gates, 
You see and know — for now you do not know — 
What there awaits you. You have seen the grave; 
You know the dissolution and decay 
That folds the body as it mouldering lies 
After the racking of those final hours 
Where soul and body part. But have you guessed 
That — as the body rots without the soul — 
So the soul crumbles in a vile decay 
You cannot picture, when the body dies? 
Then falls the spirit limb from reeking limb. 
An agony beyond all mortal thought 
Shakes every atom of the spiritual frame — 



act v] MR. FAUST 111 

The throes of dissolution. Death, indeed, 

All men can bear; but this last spiritual death, 

This torture of the disembodied soul 

To force dissolving — ah, prepare yourself! 

It shall appall you! 

FAUST 

If it comes, it comes. 

SATAN 

We have been foes ; but now I speak as friend. 
This shall not come to you ! 'T is in my power 
To save you from this uttermost horror's grasp. 
For I have gift of perfect dreamless sleep ; 
And those to whom I give shall after death 
Slumber unconscious while the awful change 
Attacks them ; and oblivion shall be theirs 
Unbroken stretching from the final hour. 

FAUST 

That were a boon not easily despised. 

SATAN 

It shall be yours ! My crushed and broken foe 
Shall never at my hand lack final rest 
Where nightmares cannot come. As honest foes 
We shall be quit. And for this priceless gift 
I ask but that you give me, as remembrance, 
That book which you have wrought concerning me. 

FAUST 

Why still so eager? 

SATAN 

Eager? I am not. 

FAUST 

Satan, my soul still sees, though death has drawn 
Its curtains round my body. You have sought 



112 MR. FAUST [act v 

With long endeavor to enslave my will 

To nothingness ; now would you doom to dark 

My sublimated soul, my written word, 

My force immortal. . . . 

(He takes up the pen) 

This, Satan, is your answer — 
(He writes on the last sheet of the manuscript) 
" With this last word I close my testament : 
' Man, work thy will, and God shall come of thee.' " 

SATAN 

Poor thwarted fool, who would not take my lures, 
Being far too wise ! Yet dustward now he turns, 
And where Faust stood shall nothingness survive! 

FAUST 

Approach me not : I have grown sanctified. 
Loathing the night and dreaming of the dawn, 
I claim some kinship with the Eternal Power 
Which in the dust, the daisy and the star 
Moves onward in its self-ordained sway — 
Life everlasting. Through my veins it sweeps, 
Bearing me onward; and as I am borne, 
I onward urge, till my short day be done 
And I fall spent; and over me the wave 
Sweeps on its way immortal; and my soul 
Partakes of that lost immortality. 

SATAN 

Dreamer, whose dreams shall soon be choked with 
dust! 
faust (slowly rising) 

I am that dreamer to whose mounting dreams 
No bounds are set, no region which my will 
May not reach out toward. And I will create — ■ 



act v] MR. FAUST 113 



I, and the souls that after me shall come — 
By passion of desire a pillar of flame 
Above the wastes of life. If no God be, 
I will from my deep soul create a God 
Into the universe to fight for me! 
(He sinks back) 

SATAN 

How strong a master! Why not slay me now? 
Put forth your strength, and try how great it be! 

FAUST 

Though dying, I am master. But you still 
Are j ester, even at death-beds — knowing well 
I have no power to slay you. You retreat 
But perish not; the sphere of your domain 
Contracts, but it endures immortally. 
Have done with jesting: look me in the eyes! 
Acknowledge me, and all high heritors 
Who shall succeed me, your eternal foe, 
Your eternal victor in half-victories — 
But never your destroyer to the last. 

SATAN 

I thank all prophets for their prophecy! 
But I shall still remain? . . . 

FAUST 

You shall remain. . . . 

SATAN 

I shall remain! . . . 

[Faust and Satan sit silent, watching each other 
steadily. Faust closes his eyes, then suddenly raises 
himself in his chair. 

FAUST 

Ah, what a ghastly dream! 
Ghastly, for all its cold and lofty state. 



114 MR. FAUST [act v 

Nay, what have I to do with yearning thoughts 

Of immortality? I am young with life! 

I shall not die ! Hope and the eager years 

Of labor rise before me as I press 

Clear of these shadows. I have dreamed dark 

dreams — 
One very dark of late — but now my blood 
Resurges in a not less passionate fire 
Than when, less wise, I stretched my hands to life, 
And all my hopes were winged. But that is past; 
And dreams are past: the day of deed is come. 
Aye, in the cities, on the hills of the world, 
I shall uplift the banner of high wars — 
I shall make mock of this strange dizziness — 
I shall live — and Death retreats from me afraid ! 

SATAN 

What! Then I '11 do his office! 

FAUST 

Spare your pains 
The tide of strength recedes, swift as it came. . . , 
Oldham! I cannot die! I cannot die! . . . 
And I am dying. . . . 

[Faust sinks back with closed eyes. The door opens 
softly and the butler enters, followed by Midge 
who carries an armful of flowers. She looks around 
the room, bewildered; then crosses quickly to Faust's 
chair. 

SATAN 

Madam, you come too late. 
[Faust opens his eyes — and, lifting the manuscript, 
with feeble hand holds it out to her. 



act v] MR. FAUST 115 

FAUST 

No, not too late. . . . Touch me across the dusk — 
[ilf idge, shaken and faltering, clasps the book to her. 
Doubtfully she touches his shoulder. Faust, slightly 
smiling, closes his eyes, 

CURTAIN 



DEC 9 1913 



,-n- 



